The researchers from Canada’s University of Waterloo in Ontario, who made the relevant publication in the journal “AIP Advances”, reported that the “new” hole persists in all seasons and is located in the lower part of the stratosphere.
A huge ozone hole, seven times bigger than the one over Antarctica and “all-weather”, has been revealed over the Earth’s tropics. It is estimated that the hole has existed since the 1980s, but only now has its large size been realized.
The researchers from Canada’s University of Waterloo in Ontario, led by Professor Ching-Bin Lu, who made the relevant publication in the journal “AIP Advances” of the American Institute of Physics, reported that the “new” hole persists in all seasons and is located in lower part of the stratosphere.
“The tropics make up half of the planet’s surface and are home to about half the world’s population. The existence of a tropical ozone hole may be a cause of great global concern. Ozone depletion can lead to increased UV radiation at the Earth’s surface, which in turn can increase people’s risk of skin cancer and cataracts, as well as weakened immune systems and reduced agricultural productivity. productivity, while still potentially negatively impacting sensitive marine organisms and ecosystems,” said Lu.
“The new discovery raises the need for further careful studies of ozone depletion, changes in UV radiation, increased risks of cancer and other negative effects on health and ecosystems in the tropics,” he added.
The observation of the large tropical ozone hole is rather a surprise to the scientific community, as it was not predicted by conventional photochemical models. As with the older polar hole discovered in 1985, about 80% of the usual ozone concentration was found to be missing from the center of the tropical hole.
As early as the mid-1970s scientists had evidence that certain industrial chemicals, notably chlorofluorocarbons, were destroying ozone in the atmosphere (which absorbs most of the ultraviolet solar radiation), which was confirmed in the mid-1980s by the discovery of the hole over Antarctica. Although the international agreement in Montreal banned some chemicals and thus slowed ozone depletion, the problem has not gone away, as the size of the tropical hole shows.
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