Ozone hole over Antarctic

The development of the ozone hole over Antarctica is accelerated by heterogeneous catalysis on microciystals of ice. These microcrystals form in abundance in the Antarctic spring, which is when the ozone hole appears. Ice microciystals are less common in the Arctic atmosphere, so ozone depletion has not been as extensive in the Northern Hemisphere. 

Figure 11.5 This diagram comes from NASA s ozone monitoring programme TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer). The ozone hole over the Antarctic (shown in purple and pink on the diagram) is largest in the Antarctic spring. Note Dobson Units are a measure of the total amount of ozone in a vertical column from the ground to the top of the atmosphere.

Figure 29 The 2000 ozone hole over the Antarctic seen by the satellite EP-TOMS (Image courtesy of NASA)...

Although Rowland and Molina had predicted depletion of ozone concentrations by these reactions, there were many who doubted their conclusions. The phenomenon that finally brought the problem to the attention of the world was the discovery of the ozone hole over the Antarctic in 1985. During the winter, a combination of air flow pattern and low temperature create stratospheric clouds of ice particles. The surface of these particles is an ideal location for reaction of NO2, OCl, and O3. These clouds contain nitric acid hydrate, formed by... 

The ozone hole over Antarctica results from the storage of chlorine-containing molecules on the surfaces of polar stratospheric clouds during the Antarctic winter followed by sudden photolysis and release in the spring. 

Detection of the so-called ozone hole over the Antarctic raised several intriguing questions. Why over the Antarctic Why during spring Also, the magnitudes of the measured decreases in ozone over the Antarctic were much greater than any predictions based solely on gas-phase chemistry, of the type outlined above - why The answers to these questions provide an excellent demonstration of the maxim that in the environment processes rarely, if ever, act in isolation. 

Research has shown that heterogeneous catalysis is most likely responsible for the annual formation of an ozone hole over Antarctica. After the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985, scientists wondered why there was such a dramatic drop in ozone over Antarctica but not over the rest of the planet. After aU, the chlorine from chlorofluorocar-bons that catalyzes ozone destruction is evenly distributed throughout the entire atmosphere. 

The history of ozone depletion took a dramatic turn in 1985 when J. C. Farman at the BAS Halley Bay station announced that ozone levels over the Antarctic had decreased by more than 40 percent between 1977 and 1984. Farman explained that ozone levels had fallen so low that one could say that a "hole had formed in the ozone layer above the South Pole. In 1984, that "hole covered an area of more than 15 million square miles (40 million square kilometers), equal to the size of the continental United States. Clearly, ozone depletion was not a long-term problem about which scientists could debate for the next century or so. It was an issue that demanded quick attention and action. 

But does that mean that the ozone hole has started to disappear That question is more difficult to answer. The concentration of ozone over the Antarctic, as measured at the Halley Bay station. 

CFCs released to the atmosphere evenmally find their way up to the stratosphere where they destroy the ozone layer which protects the Earth s surface from harmful ultra-violet radiation. During the last decades, the ozone layer has been severely depleted, both over the Antarctic region where the ozone hole now appears annually, but also over the northern hemisphere. Ozone depletion up to 40% has been recorded in each of the last three years over Northern Europe. 

Indeed, these reactions play an important role in the Antarctic ozone hole and they have important implications for control strategies, particularly of the bromi-nated compounds. For example, Danilin et al. (1996) examined the effects of ClO -BrO coupling on the cumulative loss of O-, in the Antarctic ozone hole from August 1 until the time of maximum ozone depletion. Increased bromine increased the rate of ozone loss under the denitrified conditions assumed in the calculations by converting CIO to Cl, primarily via reactions (31b) and (31c) (followed by photolysis of BrCl). Danilin et al. (1996) estimate that the efficiency of ozone destruction per bromine atom (a) is 33-55 times that per chlorine atom (the bromine enhancement factor ) under these conditions in the center of the Antarctic polar vortex, a 60 calculated as a global average over all latitudes, seasons, and altitudes (WMO, 1999). 

It has been estimated that one chlorine atom has an atmospheric lifetime of one to two years and may destroy 100,000 ozone molecules, thus contributing to the mysterious ozone hole. The British Antarctic Survey discovered the lowest ozone concentration in Earth s atmosphere ever recorded, in October 1984 nearly 40 percent less than the historical average for Antarctica. Atmospheric currents concentrate CFCs over Antarctica, creating the ozone hole that in 1984 was larger than the United States and taller than Mount Everest. The loss of ozone as a protective layer permits the penetration of increased levels of ultraviolet light to Earth s surface. 

Ozone hole Since a large hole in the stratospheric ozone envelope was discovered over the Antarctic, it has been established that the thinning of the... 

Figure 29 shows a recent picture of the ozone hole taken from space. Strictly speaking the use of the word hole to describe what happens to ozone in the Antarctic is an exaggeration. There is undoubtedly a massive depletion of ozone, particularly between 12 and 20 km in the Antarctic stratosphere (up to 100%) but the total column of ozone is depleted rather than removed altogether (see Figure 28). The exact location and size of the hole varies with meteorological conditions, but the area covered has increased over the past 10 years or so (see Figure 30). Currently, in the austral spring the hole extends over the entire Antarctic continent, occasionally including the tip of South America, covering an area equivalent to the North American continent (ca. 22 million km ) (see Figure 31).

In the winter of 1984, massive losses of stratospheric ozone were detected in Antarctica over the South Pole (Halley Bay). This ozone depletion is known as the ozone hole. We know now that it also forms over the Arctic, although not as dramatically as in the Antarctic. Stratospheric ozone protects life on the surface of the Earth by screening harmful UV radiation coming from the sun through a photodissociation mechanism (see Chapter 4). 

The Antarctic ozone holes typically develop at altitudes of 7.4-16 mi (12-25 km). The average decreases in springtime stratospheric ozone concentrations over Antarctica have been 30-40%. However, in some years the decrease in ozone has been over 60%. In the worst years, the ozone concentration over Antarctica was only 120 DU. In October 1999, the ozone concentrations were less than 50% of what they were in the 1960s. 

FIGURE 20.29 This false color image shows total stratospheric ozone amounts over the southern hemisphere for September 24, 2006, as recorded by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) mounted on the Aura spacecraft. The dramatic depletion of the ozone layer over Antarctica is revealed with the help of the false color scale at the bottom of the figure. Ozone amounts are commonly expressed in Dobson units 300 Dobson units is a typical global average over the course of a year. The size of the Antarctic ozone hole was near a record high and the levels of ozone near a record low on this date. 

In 1984, a remarkable and totally unpredicted phenomenon was discovered by the British Antarctic Survey, the so-called ozone hole. The discovery of ozone depletion over Antarctica during the spring period provided the first observational support for the possible effect of CFCs on the stratospheric ozone. However, the observation of ozone loss did not indicate its cause. From 1984 to 1988, several theories were postulated from CFC chemistry to atmospheric dynamics or even to cosmic electron fluxes. It was not until 1988, with the results of the 1987 Airborne Antarctic Ozone Expedition, that a probable link with CFCs was established. This prompted the Natural Resources Defense Council, an American pressure group, to sue the EPA to fulfill its 1980 promise to seek legislation to further control the manufacture and use of CFCs in the United States of America. 

While not a true hole in the sense that some column ozone remains even in the most extreme depletions observed in the mid 1990s (when October ozone minima were near 100 Dobson Units over the South Pole, or depletion of about two-thirds of the historical levels, see Hofmann et al, 1997), the descriptor captures the fact that the peak depletion is sharply limited to Antarctic latitudes. Dobson (1968 and references therein) noted that there is less ozone naturally present over Antarctica than over the Arctic in winter and much of the spring, but this climatological difference between the natural ozone levels over the poles of the two hemispheres should not be confused with the abrupt decline that began near the mid-1970s as depicted in Figure 6.9. Newman (1994) discusses these and other historical measurements of total ozone and shows that the Antarctic ozone hole began only in the last few decades. 

---