The Global Warming Potential (GWP) (also sometimes called the Greenhouse Warming Potential) is used to rank the relative effectiveness of a gas at producing a greenhouse effect. Generally, the higher the GWP, the greater the amount of infrared radiation that a molecule of the gas absorbs, and thus the greater the contribution to a greenhouse warming effect from that particular gas molecule.

A major implication of the much-higher GWPs for methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), and CFCs is that it takes less of these gases to produce a greenhouse warming effect than CO₂. So, while the concentrations of the minor greenhouse gases are very small relative to CO₂, they could be important later on since their concentrations are beginning to increase at rates similar to CO₂.

The amount of the overall warming of the atmosphere from each individual greenhouse gas must be indexed to the amount of each gas in the atmosphere. Notice that a) amount of the minor greenhouse gases are on the order of 1 part per million or so (1 ppmv = 1/1,000,000 by volume; a percent would be 1/100); and b) the concentrations have begun to increase at a much accelerated rate in the last century. Compare these concentrations to that of CO₂ (at about 360 ppmv). While the concentrations are low now, allowing their concentrations to increase at their current accelerating rates and coupling that with the higher GWPs may result in a substantial portion of the future greenhouse effect being produced by these gases instead of CO₂/H₂O.