Causes and Effects of Stratospheric Ozone Reduction: An Update, Report of the Committee on Chemistry and Physics of Ozone Depletion and the Committee on Biological Effects of Increased Solar Ultraviolet Radiation

1982 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 142
Author(s):  
M. Granger Morgan ◽  
Environmental Studies Board
Keyword(s):  
Ultraviolet Radiation ◽  
Ozone Depletion ◽  
Biological Effects ◽  
Stratospheric Ozone ◽  
Solar Ultraviolet Radiation ◽  
Solar Ultraviolet

scholarly journals Stratospheric ozone depletion

2006 ◽  
Vol 361 (1469) ◽  
pp. 769-790 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Sherwood Rowland
Keyword(s):  
Ultraviolet Radiation ◽  
Ozone Depletion ◽  
Biological Activities ◽  
Stratospheric Ozone ◽  
Ozone Layer ◽  
Ultraviolet B ◽  
Montreal Protocol ◽  
Atmospheric Measurements ◽  
Solar Ultraviolet Radiation ◽  
Solar Ultraviolet

Solar ultraviolet radiation creates an ozone layer in the atmosphere which in turn completely absorbs the most energetic fraction of this radiation. This process both warms the air, creating the stratosphere between 15 and 50 km altitude, and protects the biological activities at the Earth's surface from this damaging radiation. In the last half-century, the chemical mechanisms operating within the ozone layer have been shown to include very efficient catalytic chain reactions involving the chemical species HO, HO 2 , NO, NO 2 , Cl and ClO. The NO X and ClO X chains involve the emission at Earth's surface of stable molecules in very low concentration (N 2 O, CCl 2 F 2 , CCl 3 F, etc.) which wander in the atmosphere for as long as a century before absorbing ultraviolet radiation and decomposing to create NO and Cl in the middle of the stratospheric ozone layer. The growing emissions of synthetic chlorofluorocarbon molecules cause a significant diminution in the ozone content of the stratosphere, with the result that more solar ultraviolet-B radiation (290–320 nm wavelength) reaches the surface. This ozone loss occurs in the temperate zone latitudes in all seasons, and especially drastically since the early 1980s in the south polar springtime—the ‘Antarctic ozone hole’. The chemical reactions causing this ozone depletion are primarily based on atomic Cl and ClO, the product of its reaction with ozone. The further manufacture of chlorofluorocarbons has been banned by the 1992 revisions of the 1987 Montreal Protocol of the United Nations. Atmospheric measurements have confirmed that the Protocol has been very successful in reducing further emissions of these molecules. Recovery of the stratosphere to the ozone conditions of the 1950s will occur slowly over the rest of the twenty-first century because of the long lifetime of the precursor molecules.

scholarly journals Episode of unusual high solar ultraviolet radiation in central Europe due to dynamical reduced stratospheric ozone in May 2005

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 10409-10420 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Stick ◽  
K. Krüger ◽  
N. H. Schade ◽  
H. Sandmann ◽  
A. Macke
Keyword(s):  
Ultraviolet Radiation ◽  
Uv Radiation ◽  
Stratospheric Ozone ◽  
Solar Ultraviolet Radiation ◽  
Solar Uv ◽  
Resultant Increase ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Effective Radiation ◽  
Ozone Episodes ◽  
Solar Ultraviolet

Abstract. In late May this year unusual high levels of solar ultraviolet radiation were observed in Europe. In Northern Germany the measured irradiance of erythemally effective radiation exceeded the climatological mean by more than about 20%. An extreme low ozone event for the season coincided with the high solar elevation angles during late spring leading to the highest value of erythemal UV-radiation ever observed at this location in May. This ''ozone mini-hole'' was caused by an elevation of tropopause height accompanied with a poleward advection of natural low total ozone from the tropics. The resultant increase in UV-radiation is of particular significance for human health. Dynamically induced low ozone episodes that happen around the summer solstice can considerably enhance the solar UV-radiation in the mid latitudes and therefore contribute to the UV-burden of people living in the mid latitudes.

scholarly journals Record-Breaking Increases in Arctic Solar Ultraviolet Radiation Caused by Exceptionally Large Ozone Depletion in 2020

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Germar H Bernhard ◽  
Vitali E Fioletov ◽  
Jens-Uwe Grooß ◽  
Iolanda Ialongo ◽  
Bjørn Johnsen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ultraviolet Radiation ◽  
Ozone Depletion ◽  
Solar Ultraviolet Radiation ◽  
Solar Ultraviolet
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