FRANCE: To the roll call of greenhouse gases that are warming our planet, gases like carbon dioxide and methane, you can add some others, European researchers say, courtesy of your local hospital and the anesthetic gases used in its operating rooms.
Levels of surgical anesthetic gases including isoflurane, desflurane and sevoflurane in the atmosphere have increased over the last 10 years and have been measured as far away from their sources as the air over Antarctica, the scientists say.
Although the overall amounts may be low compared with the more common greenhouse gases, there is concern because such medical anesthetic gases are much more potent when it comes to their potential of creating a greenhouse effect, the researchers point out in their study published in Geophysical Research Letters.
In terms of greenhouse warming potential, 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of one of the anesthetic gases, desflurane, is the equivalent of 5,512 pounds (2,500 kilograms) of carbon dioxide, explains study leader Martin Vollmer, an atmospheric chemist at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology in Switzerland.
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