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The ozone layer is one of the oldest things on the planet, older than any of the ancient creatures we see in our museums today. The ozone layer has provided protection for the living components under it for millions of years, and without the ozone layer, we most likely would not be here today. Our evolution would have been cut off millions of years ago without our planets ability to provide protection from the ever-harmful rays from our sun. Each year since the late 1970 s much of the protective layer of stratospheric ozone above Antarctica has disappeared during September, creating what is commonly known as the ozone hole. The Antarctic hole now measures about 9 million square miles, nearly the size of North America. Less dramatic, but still significant, depletion of ozone levels has been recorded around the globe.
With less ozone in the atmosphere, more ultraviolet radiation strikes the earth, causing more skin cancer, eye damage, and possible harm to crops. At this point you may be asking yourself why is the hole over Antarctica? What is unique about Antarctica that would cause a hole the size of North America to form over its vast presence? Those seem to be some of the first questions that come to peoples minds when contemplating the hole in our atmosphere. The answer is this, During the Antarctic winter, an oval shaped polar vortex, is formed over the South Pole area. The vortex brings ozone rich air from above, ozone poor air is pushed out.
The vortex is extremely cold, reaching temperatures of - 80 degrees Celsius. These cold conditions help cause large clouds to form in the crystals of nitric acid inside of the clouds. As the cloud of water and nitric acid starts to grow, it can grow to the point where it covers the entire Antarctic region. When sunlight passes through the cloud, ozone-destroying chlorine and chlorine oxide are formed from the inactive chlorine and nitric acid in the cloud. The chlorine and chlorine oxide can count for up to 70 % of the ozone depletion over Antarctica each year. Possible solutions to this problem are being evaluated many ideas of trying to manually repair the ozone hole have been looked at.
According to what I have read and researched the most obvious solution would be to manually add ozone to the depleted areas of the stratosphere. Unfortunately, that is not a possible alternative to our problem. From what we do know about the Antarctic stratospheric mechanics, the ozone levels have worked out a balance even with depleted levels. Any ozone that we would artificially add would most likely be destroyed and would not help our problem in the long run. A more futuristic approach is to destroy the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
CFCs are used as refrigerants, coolants, and propellants for aerosol cans since the 1930 s. CFC molecules can absorb up to thirty infrared photons before they are destroyed, so if we were to aim high-powered infrared lasers at the ozone there should be a significant reduction of chlorofluorocarbons. Another possible solution or plan to help the ozone layer would be to dump about 50, 000 tons of ethane or propane into the Antarctic stratosphere each spring. The chemicals would transform ozone-depleting chlorine into non-ozone depleting HC 1. The process would have to be repeated annually. Right now, there are no official plans to try to fix the ozone hole in the Antarctic.
We simply dont know enough about the problem to try and resolve it. The long-term affects will continue to be analyzed and predictions will continue to be made. If we try and fix the problem before we know exactly what will happen when we attempt to solve the problem we may actually make the problem worse or even impossible to repair. For now, we are stuck with an ozone depleted Antarctic. Where is the Ozone?
The ozone layer is one of the oldest things on the planet, older than any of the ancient creatures we see in our museums today. The ozone layer has provided protection for the living components under it for millions of years, and without the ozone layer, we most likely would not be here today. Our evolution would have been cut off millions of years ago without our planets ability to provide protection from the ever-harmful rays from our sun. Each year since the late 1970 s much of the protective layer of stratospheric ozone above Antarctica has disappeared during September, creating what is commonly known as the ozone hole. The Antarctic hole now measures about 9 million square miles, nearly the size of North America. Less dramatic, but still significant, depletion of ozone levels has been recorded around the globe.
With less ozone in the atmosphere, more ultraviolet radiation strikes the earth, causing more skin cancer, eye damage, and possible harm to crops. At this point you may be asking yourself why is the hole over Antarctica? What is unique about Antarctica that would cause a hole the size of North America to form over its vast presence? Those seem to be some of the first questions that come to peoples minds when contemplating the hole in our atmosphere. The answer is this, During the Antarctic winter, an oval shaped polar vortex, is formed over the South Pole area.
The vortex brings ozone rich air from above, ozone poor air is pushed out. The vortex is extremely cold, reaching temperatures of - 80 degrees Celsius. These cold conditions help cause large clouds to form in the crystals of nitric acid inside of the clouds. As the cloud of water and nitric acid starts to grow, it can grow to the point where it covers the entire Antarctic region. When sunlight passes through the cloud, ozone-destroying chlorine and chlorine oxide are formed from the inactive chlorine and nitric acid in the cloud. The chlorine and chlorine oxide can count for up to 70 % of the ozone depletion over Antarctica each year.
Possible solutions to this problem are being evaluated many ideas of trying to manually repair the ozone hole have been looked at. According to what I have read and researched the most obvious solution would be to manually add ozone to the depleted areas of the stratosphere. Unfortunately, that is not a possible alternative to our problem. From what we do know about the Antarctic stratospheric mechanics, the ozone levels have worked out a balance even with depleted levels. Any ozone that we would artificially add would most likely be destroyed and would not help our problem in the long run. A more futuristic approach is to destroy the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
CFCs are used as refrigerants, coolants, and propellants for aerosol cans since the 1930 s. CFC molecules can absorb up to thirty infrared photons before they are destroyed, so if we were to aim high-powered infrared lasers at the ozone there should be a significant reduction of chlorofluorocarbons. Another possible solution or plan to help the ozone layer would be to dump about 50, 000 tons of ethane or propane into the Antarctic stratosphere each spring. The chemicals would transform ozone-depleting chlorine into non-ozone depleting HC 1. The process would have to be repeated annually. Right now, there are no official plans to try to fix the ozone hole in the Antarctic.
We simply dont know enough about the problem to try and resolve it. The long-term affects will continue to be analyzed and predictions will continue to be made. If we try and fix the problem before we know exactly what will happen when we attempt to solve the problem we may actually make the problem worse or even impossible to repair. For now, we are stuck with an ozone depleted Antarctic. [/b]
Free research essays on topics related to: ozone depleting, chlorofluorocarbons cfcs, nitric acid, ozone layer, stratospheric ozone
Research essay sample on Chlorofluorocarbons Cfcs Ozone Depleting
