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August 24, 2009 08:50 PM
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Thus far, it's still getting worse, but we have reason to think it will get better.
As with so much else in the climate, it takes a long-term view to understand. It naturally gets bigger and smaller throughout the year, due to the weather, which makes its precise size hard to judge. The variables also mean it naturally changes size from year to year in warmer and colder years (as well as other big effects, like volcanoes.)
The problem is that the gases that were causing ozone depletion tend to be long-lived. They act as catalysts to destroy ozone, so they're not used up in the reaction. That was the real cause of concern: not just that ozone was destroyed, but that it would continue for a long time, while we just added more each year.
The production of ozone-depleting chemicals has been reduced dramatically, but the old ones are still there. The best that can be said is that the rate of depletion has been reduced; the rate at which it's getting worse is not itself getting worse.
It is expected that we'll begin to see recovery (that is, reduction in the size of the ozone hole) somewhere between 10 and 20 years from now.
Source(s):
http://acdb-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/met/ann_data.html
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What is the current outlook on what is happening with the ozone layer?
Has the reduction of CFC refrigerants and aerosols helped?
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- About Ozone Layer |
- In Atmospheric Science |
- Tags: ozone, hole, hfcs, layer, cfcs |
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Best Answer Chosen by Asker
| August 24, 2009 10:27 PM |
As with so much else in the climate, it takes a long-term view to understand. It naturally gets bigger and smaller throughout the year, due to the weather, which makes its precise size hard to judge. The variables also mean it naturally changes size from year to year in warmer and colder years (as well as other big effects, like volcanoes.)
The problem is that the gases that were causing ozone depletion tend to be long-lived. They act as catalysts to destroy ozone, so they're not used up in the reaction. That was the real cause of concern: not just that ozone was destroyed, but that it would continue for a long time, while we just added more each year.
The production of ozone-depleting chemicals has been reduced dramatically, but the old ones are still there. The best that can be said is that the rate of depletion has been reduced; the rate at which it's getting worse is not itself getting worse.
It is expected that we'll begin to see recovery (that is, reduction in the size of the ozone hole) somewhere between 10 and 20 years from now.
Source(s):
http://acdb-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/met/ann_data.html
| Asker's Rating: |
• I saw a presentation by Katy Couric that said scientists were seeing a shrinking of the hole. That is good news.
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