Global Warming Potential and Greenhouse Gas Sources

All greenhouse gases have what is called the Global Warming Potential (GWP).  This number is based off of a few characteristics of the gas and is used to compare how effective the gas is at trapping heat in the atmosphere.  GWP is based off how well the gas traps heat relative to that of CO2 and how quickly it decays from the atmosphere.  Another use of the GWP can be in defining how effective the gas will be in global warming over a given time span.  The GWP value is often used in politics when setting regulations.

  

This table has several useful attributes.  The fact that methane and nitrous oxide are much more heat absorbing than CO2  jumps out right away.  However, because there is so much more CO2 in the atmosphere it is still the biggest problem.  Finally, in the anthropogenic sources column we can see a few of the major sources of these gases.

Sources:
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/global-warming-potential.html