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A Multi-model Assessment of the Global Warming Potential of Hydrogen

Abstract

With increasing global interest in molecular hydrogen to replace fossil fuels, more attention is being paid to potential leakages of hydrogen into the atmosphere and its environmental consequences. Hydrogen is not directly a greenhouse gas, but its chemical reactions change the abundances of the greenhouse gases methane, ozone, and stratospheric water vapor, as well as aerosols. Here, we use a model ensemble of five global atmospheric chemistry models to estimate the 100-year time-horizon Global Warming Potential (GWP100) of hydrogen. We estimate a hydrogen GWP100 of 11.6 ± 2.8 (one standard deviation). The uncertainty range covers soil uptake, photochemical production of hydrogen, the lifetimes of hydrogen and methane, and the hydroxyl radical feedback on methane and hydrogen. The hydrogeninduced changes are robust across the different models. It will be important to keep hydrogen leakages at a minimum to accomplish the benefits of switching to a hydrogen economy.

Funding source: This study was supported by the HYDROGEN project grants no. 320240 funded by Energix and the Norwegian Research Council. Parts of the simulations were performed on resources provided by Sigma2 - the National Infrastructure for High-Performance Computing and Data Storage in Norway, and the data was also uploaded and shared through their services through the project accounts NN9188K and NS9188K.
Related subjects: Safety
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/content/journal6708
2025-06-07
2025-02-14
/content/journal6708
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