His solitary nighttime research would end up changing how scientists viewed global warming. In fact, Ramanathan’s calculations suggested, they were more potent: One molecule of a CFC could have the same warming effect as up to 10,000 molecules of carbon dioxide. A paper he coauthored in 1985 concluded that trace gases were potentially as important as CO2 for long-term global warming. Global warming is going to come twice as fast as we thought. Ramanathan and others argued that CFCs’ potential for global warming gave reason to restrict production.