Anaesthetic gases raising Earths temperature too

London: Anaesthetic gases may help doctors to cause temporary loss of sensation in patients and carry out surgery smoothly, but by accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere, they also contribute to climate change, says a new study.Over the past decade, concentrations of the anaesthetics desflurane, isoflurane and sevoflurane have been rising globally.

Like the well-known climate warmer carbon dioxide, anaesthesia gases allow the atmosphere to store more energy from the Sun, the researchers noted. But unlike carbon dioxide, the medical gases are extra potent in their greenhouse-gas effects. The researchers reported the 2014 atmospheric concentration of desflurane as 0.30 parts per trillion (ppt). Isoflurane, sevoflurane and halothane came in at 0.097 ppt, 0.13 ppt and 0.0092 ppt, respectively. The team did not include the common anaesthesia nitrous oxide in the study because it has many sources other than anaesthetics.