Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Academia Sinica, Beijing 100029, PRC

The radiative forcing and greenhouse effect due to the atmospheric trace gases have been calculated by using an advanced radiative-convective model developed in this paper. The relationship between radiative forcing and concentration is given for each trace gas. The resuhs show that (ⅰ) the radiative forcing and then the greenhouse effect are significantly affected by the overlapping of atmospheric absorption bands; (ⅱ) the increasing concentration of trace gases other than CO₂, such as CH₄, N₂O, CFCs, etc., may potentially play an important role in the future global warming;(ⅲ) the proposed substitutes, such as HCFC124 and HFC125, for the chlorofluorocarbons which are considered to destroy the ozone layer have still considerable greenhouse effect even though their ozone depletion potentials are much smaller than CFCs; and (ⅳ) the feedback processes within the earth-atmosphere system have important effect on the surface temperature change due to the radiative forcing to the system.