A curious study that has just been published in Geophysical Research Letters warns about some "evildoers" that are not considered when we talk about climate change: the gases that are used to anesthetize patients during operations .
Although its presence in the atmosphere cannot be compared with that of the main responsible for global warming, CO2, traces of narcotic substances have been found even in Antarctica .
In addition, its capacity to store energy from the sun – the cause of the increase in temperatures – is much greater than that of CO2 . For example, a kilo of desflurane is equivalent, if we take into account its potential greenhouse effect, to 2,500 kilos of carbon dioxide.
The researchers, led by Martin Vollmer, an atmospheric chemist at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, have measured the levels of desflurane, isoflurane, sevoflurane and halothane, which are 0.30 parts per billion (ppb); 0.097 ppb; 0.13 ppb and 0.0092 ppb, respectively.
As a point of comparison, CO2 has a concentration of 400 parts per million, a billion times higher than that of desflurane . Nitrous oxide, a widely used anesthetic, was not measured in the study because there are sources of emission other than operating rooms.
Despite their modest contribution to global warming, experts believe that the polluting action of these gases should not be underestimated.
