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Last month, scientists announced that the ozone hole above Antarctica is no longer increasing in size. This is encouraging news because in the last 25 years the ozone "hole" (not really a hole but a thinning of the ozone) has grown to 10 million square miles—more than 2.5 times the size of the United States. Could the world's efforts to reduce chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs (the major cause of ozone destruction) finally be paying off? It looks that way, but we still have a long way to go!
Ozone (O3) is present throughout the atmosphere in small amounts, but forms a layer in the stratosphere (the layer of the atmosphere just above the troposphere, where we are). This ozone layer helps to filter out more than 95% of the sun's harmful UV-B rays, making the earth a habitable place.
In the 1970s, scientists discovered that the amount of ozone in the stratosphere was decreasing, and although ozone levels fluctuate naturally these fluctuations could not account for such a dramatic loss. At that time, CFCs were considered to be miracle chemicals and were widely used in aerosols, refrigeration systems, and cleaning solvents. Chemists Frank Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina began to study what happened to CFCs released into the atmosphere. They discovered that as CFCs rise high in the atmosphere, they are broken down by solar radiation releasing chlorine atoms. Under the right conditions these chlorine atoms break down ozone into oxygen (O2). This loss in ozone was found to be most severe over Antarctica in late winter, namely October (remember, the southern hemisphere's winter is opposite the northern hemisphere's). Although this is a simplified explanation of the complicated chemical process of ozone loss, it paints a good picture of the effects humans have on the ozone layer. Drs. Rowland and Molina later shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with another man for their work on ozone.
Once it was discovered that CFCs were contributing to ozone loss, nations around the world got together and signed the Montreal Protocol of 1987 to reduce the amount of CFCs produced. The goal of the Montreal Protocol and its amendments was to eliminate the production of CFCs in developed countries by 1996. Although the world is well on its way to CFC reduction, a significant black market for CFCs exists, slowing progress of complete CFC elimination.
Data Activity
NASA has an excellent data website called Earth Observatory that we will access for ozone data. From the Earth Observatory main page, click on Atmosphere under Visible Earth. From there, click on Ozone under Data Sets. We will generate an animation of ozone levels from November 1978 to September 2001 by entering the following variables under How to build animations:
Once the animation plays, you can look at it frame by frame using your right and left arrow keys. Areas on the animation that are blue in color show significant thinning of the ozone layer. Let's look at the most severe thinning of the ozone — the area over Antarctica during the month of October. For ease of viewing, we have downloaded from the Earth Observatory the October images for every five years starting with 1979.
For more information and activities on global change issues, visit the Bridge's Global Climate Change section.
If you have questions about the Data Tip of the Month or have suggestions for a future data tip, contact Lisa Lawrence, Bridge Webkeeper. Current Data Tip of the Month
Data Tip of the Month Archives
On-Line Data Resources
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