Knowledge of the atmospheric chemistry of reactive greenhouse gases is needed to accurately quantify the relationship between human activities and climate, and to incorporate uncertainty in our projections of greenhouse gas abundances. We present a method for estimating the fraction of greenhouse gases attributable to human activities, both currently and for future scenarios. Key variables used to calculate the atmospheric chemistry and budgets of major non-CO2 greenhouse gases are codified along with their uncertainties, and then used to project budgets and abundances under the new climate-change scenarios. This new approach uses our knowledge of changing abundances and lifetimes to estimate current total anthropogenic emissions, independently and possibly more accurately than inventory-based scenarios. We derive a present-day atmospheric lifetime for methane (CH4) of 9.1 å± 0.9 y and anthropogenic emissions of 352 å± 45 Tg/y (64% of total emissions). For N2O, corresponding values are 131 å± 10 y and 6.5 å± 1.3 TgN/y (41% of total); and for HFC-134a, the lifetime is 14.2 å± 1.5 y. Accurate prediction of future methane abundances following a climate scenario requires understanding the lifetime changes driven by anthropogenic emissions, meteorological factors, and chemistry-climate feedbacks. Uncertainty in any of these influences or the underlying processes implies uncertainty in future abundance and radiative forcing. We simulate methane lifetime in three chemical transport models (CTMs) ‰ÛÒ UCI CTM, GEOS-Chem, and Oslo CTM3 ‰ÛÒ over the period 1997‰ÛÒ2009 and compare the models' year-to-year variability against constraints from global methyl chloroform observations. Using sensitivity tests, we find that temperature, water vapor, stratospheric ozone column, biomass burning and lightning NOx are the dominant sources of interannual changes in methane lifetime in all three models. We also evaluate each model's response to forcings that have impacts on decadal time scales, such as methane feedback, and anthropogenic emissions. In general, these different CTMs show similar sensitivities to the driving variables. We construct a parametric model that reproduces most of the interannual variability of each CTM and use it to predict methane lifetime from 1980 through 2100 following a specified emissions and climate scenario (RCP 8.5). The parametric model propagates uncertainties through all steps and provides a foundation for predicting methane abundances in any climate scenario. Our sensitivity tests also enable a new estimate of the methane global warming potential (GWP), accounting for stratospheric ozone effects, including those mediated by water vapor: the 100-yr GWP is 32 (25% larger than past assessments).