(yeah, that reduction post should also go in the geo-engineering thread , maybe?)
California the culprit for spike in little-known greenhouse gas more potent than CO2
State revealed as America’s overwhelming emitter of sulfuryl fluoride, used by $4.2bn pest-control industry to kill termites
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Furthermore, recent research has found the vast majority of the little-known gas, known as sulfuryl fluoride, is attributable to a state typically known for its climate-forward policies: California.
About 85% of US emissions of sulfuryl fluoride were traced by a recent peer-reviewed study to southern California, where the state’s $4.2bn pest-control industry uses it for drywood termite control. Sulfuryl fluoride is estimated to be up to 7,500 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of its greenhouse-gas potential.
The gas, which is also highly toxic, “has slipped under the radar”, said the Johns Hopkins University study co-author Dylan Gaeta, in large part because it only started to be widely used in recent years.
State regulators in 2023 rejected a petition calling for a sulfuryl fluoride phaseout, and Gaeta and others say the findings highlight the need for urgent regulatory action.
“Without some form of intervention, sulfuryl fluoride is going to keep accumulating in our atmosphere,” he added.
The US Environmental Protection Agency first approved sulfuryl fluoride in about 1960, but it was not used widely until methyl bromide, a common pesticide and powerful greenhouse gas previously utilized in termite treatment, was phased out about 20 years ago.
Sulfuryl fluoride is primarily used in structural fumigation in which a home is covered with a material the study’s authors likened to a circus tent. When the fumigation is complete, the gas trapped under the tent is simply released into the atmosphere. Sulfuryl fluoride is also used to kill pests in agricultural commodities that are shipped abroad to try to prevent the spread of invasive species.
But research has increasingly found the gas is not as safe as once thought, in large part because it stays in the atmosphere for about 40 years.
“It doesn’t have the same ozone-depleting problem as methyl bromide, but it has a long lifetime in the atmosphere, so over that time period it acts as a pretty potent greenhouse gas,” said Gaeta.
Average concentrations of sulfuryl fluoride in the atmosphere remain relatively low compared with carbon dioxide, but it is being released at levels faster than it breaks down. It stores heat energy at higher levels, and its presence in the atmosphere is 10 times greater than 50 years ago.
“There’s a heck of a lot less sulfuryl fluoride in the air than carbon dioxide, but one molecule of sulfuryl dioxide is much more potent than one molecule of CO2,” the study co-author Scot Miller said.
Toxicity is also a concern. Among other health issues, short-term exposure is linked to respiratory ailments, stomach pain, seizures, muscle twitching and other nervous system problems.
Exposure has killed some pest-control workers, as well as thieves who have broken into homes that are being fumigated, and long-term exposure is linked to cancer and cognitive damage. The study’s authors say their findings highlight the need for California and the EPA to include sulfuryl fluoride in their greenhouse-gas monitoring inventories.
The gas also is not included in global greenhouse gas reduction efforts, such as the Paris agreement, which were developed before sulfuryl fluoride was widely used.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/19/california-toxic-gas-sulfuryl-fluorideCalifornia dominates U.S. emissions of the pesticide and potent greenhouse gas sulfuryl fluoride
Sulfuryl fluoride (SO2F2) is a synthetic pesticide and a potent greenhouse gas that is accumulating in the global atmosphere. Rising emissions are a concern since SO2F2 has a relatively long atmospheric lifetime and a high global warming potential. The U.S. is thought to contribute substantially to global SO2F2 emissions, but there is a paucity of information on how emissions of SO2F2 are distributed across the U.S., and there is currently no inventory of SO2F2 emissions for the U.S. or individual states. Here we provide an atmospheric measurement-based estimate of U.S. SO2F2 emissions using high-precision SO2F2 measurements from the NOAA Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network (GGGRN) and a geostatistical inverse model. We find that California has the largest SO2F2 emissions among all U.S. states, with the highest emissions from southern coastal California (Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties). Outside of California, only very small and infrequent SO2F2 emissions are detected by our analysis of GGGRN data. We find that California emits 60-85% of U.S. SO2F2 emissions, at a rate of 0.26 ( ± 0.10) Gg yr−1. We estimate that emissions of SO2F2 from California are equal to 5.5–12% of global SO2F2 emissions.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01294-x