Environment

Ozone hole on the mend 30 years after global pact

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The ozone layer plays an important the role in shielding us from ultraviolet light
The researchers found that the hole has shrunk four million square km (1,545,000 sq mi) since 2000, the year when ozone depletion peaked
TOMS science team/Scientific Visualization Studio/NASA/GSFC
The ozone layer plays an important the role in shielding us from ultraviolet light

In the mid 1980s the world made an important judgement call. CFCs, the chemical compounds in fridges, aerosols and dry cleaning products, had been boring a hole in the Earth's ozone layer over the polar regions which, if left unchecked, could cause grave public health and environmental problems. So pretty much every country signed up to ban the use of CFCs, a decision that is now paying big dividends with scientists reporting significant shrinkage of the hole and evidence of what looks to be a path to recovery.

Scientists first caught wind of rising CFC, or chlorofluorocarbon, levels in the atmosphere in the 1960s, with the first scientific paper predicting it would lead to ozone depletion published in the journal Nature in 1974. The chemical compounds eat away at the ozone in the atmosphere, but only where light is present and it is cold enough to form polar stratospheric clouds, which have the effect of introducing additional chlorine to the atmosphere in large amounts.

Over the preceding decades this extra chlorine has led to a seasonal hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, which opens up as the icy continent exits a dark winter and closes again by the end of the local springtime.

The ozone layer plays the role of shielding us from ultraviolet light (UV), so when gaps start to appear and the world below is exposed to higher levels of it, that's a bit of a problem. When us humans are subjected to too much UV we are at a much higher risk of skin cancer. In fact, modeling has suggested that if ozone depletion was left to continue there would have been two million more skin cancer cases around the world each year. And this is to say nothing of the untold damage higher UV levels could cause to forests, the ocean, agriculture and the environment as a whole.

So the steps agreed upon first at the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer in 1987, and then enacted in 1989, can be seen as quite pivotal to life on Earth today. But stopping an environmental trainwreck in its tracks is one thing, sending it back the other way is another. And it is here that an international team of scientists are reporting the "first fingerprints of healing" of the ozone layer over the Antarctic.

Because the hole over Antarctica swells to its largest point in October each year, this has largely been the focal point of efforts to track ozone depletion. But the process usually kicks off in late August, so the team figured that they might get a clearer understanding of the effects of chlorine buildup by studying ozone levels a little earlier, when the temperatures are still a little colder and the hole is still in its formative stages.

"I think people, myself included, had been too focused on October, because that's when the ozone hole is enormous, in its full glory," says Susan Solomon, Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Science at MIT and co-author of the study. "But October is also subject to the slings and arrows of other things that vary, like slight changes in meteorology. September is a better time to look because chlorine chemistry is firmly in control of the rate at which the hole forms at that time of year. That point hasn't really been made strongly in the past."

The researchers found that the hole has shrunk four million square km (1,545,000 sq mi) since 2000, the year when ozone depletion peaked
TOMS science team/Scientific Visualization Studio/NASA/GSFC

Solomon and her team monitored the opening of the Antarctic ozone hole in the month of September across 15 years, from 2000 to 2015. They found that the hole has shrunk four million square km (1,545,000 sq mi) since 2000, the year when ozone depletion peaked. After accounting for changes in weather patterns like temperature and wind that can move the ozone hole around, the team concluded that more than half of the hole's shrinkage was a direct result of lower levels of atmospheric chlorine.

"We can now be confident that the things we've done have put the planet on a path to heal," says Solomon. "Which is pretty good for us, isn't it? Aren't we amazing humans, that we did something that created a situation that we decided collectively, as a world, 'Let's get rid of these molecules'? We got rid of them, and now we're seeing the planet respond."

The team's 15-year tracking of the ozone hole did throw up one curveball, however. In 2015 the hole ballooned in contrast with the trend of declining atmospheric chlorine. But by poring over the data, Solomon and her colleagues zeroed in on the reason why.

When Chile's Calbuco volcano erupted in April of 2015, spewing ash clouds into the air and delaying many international flights, it increased the amount of small particles in the air. These then compounded the stratospheric clouds over the polar regions, and in turn spurred along the chlorine chemistry that causes the ozone to erode.

The team says this is the first time volcanic eruptions have been shown to put the brakes on the ozone hole's recovery. But aside from this little outlier the news is mostly good, with the researchers expecting the hole to continue shrinking and eventually close up for good by midcentury, unless of course more volcanic eruptions get in the way.

"What's exciting for me personally is, this brings so much of my own work over 30 years full circle," says Solomon, whose research into chlorine and ozone actually inspired the Montreal Protocol. "Science was helpful in showing the path, diplomats and countries and industry were incredibly able in charting a pathway out of these molecules, and now we've actually seen the planet starting to get better. It's a wonderful thing."

The research was published in the journal Science.

Source: MIT

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6 comments
habakak
So only people under the hole would be exposed to more radiation? And only for the few months of the year? I can't think that it's a significant percentage of earths inhabitants. But yeah, good that it's improving. I just don't think it's the crisis people try to make it out to be.
ljaques
During those 15 years, hundreds of thousands (millions?) of old pollution control devices have been replaced worldwide with newer, much more strict devices while alternative power has skyrocketed. I wonder how they can claim that nixing them nasty ol' cans of freon has made this change on its own, especially since it has always been theoretical.
Then again, I held a smog license in the state of CA back in the '80s. CARB (California's Air Resources Board) had set standards for NOX which were lower than the California forests and other flora were emitting on their _own_, without any vehicles. I really trust gummint and tree hugging scientists after all that.
Agreed, though, that the smaller ozone hole is A Good Thing.
dougspair
...so...1.5 million square miles....what percentage of increase or decrease is that...exactly.... Just saying 1.5 million sq. miles alone doesn't tell us all that much.
ivan4
Why is it that these scientists never consider the whole picture? Yes, they did pick up on the role of volcanoes but they appear to have totally missed the effect of solar winds and the earth's magnetic field on the ozone hole. While they were concentrating on the southern hole what about the northern one?
It is almost as if they are following some agenda when they send out these papers.
Imran Sheikh
For Future Ozone Depletion. We Can Make(Deploy) Geo-stationary-Inflatable-Uv-Absorbing-Transparent-Film Satalite about 1km in Radius more or less depending upon the Hole, in Earths Highest Orbit. and Retract Them when Ozone os Fixed, that way we will get instant Protection from Uv instead of Waiting for Decades.
Arahant
Habakak I don't think either of us properly understand the dangers. The article states that they calculated an extra 2 million people a year would be getting skin cancer if we hadn't corrected ourselves when we did. And there isnt that many people who live in antartica, so clearly it effects either the rest of the planet or other geographical areas close to the antarctic.
And what if the hole kept growing? whose to say it couldnt have eaten the ozone completely if we were to selfish to stop or corporations that profited were in control.
What I like about this is it shows us that when we see how we are negatively impacting the environment, where something we are doing is causing real damage, that we have the ability to stop and reverse it, even something as big as this. We have the ability to slow, stop, and reverse climate change, but we need to make changes just like this.