ozone hole
Before I talk about the ozone hole, I would like to talk about what ozone is. Ozone is a gas that is made of three oxygen atoms and it’s found up in the atmosphere (stratosphere layer). These three oxygen atoms are so important to us because they protect us from UV radiation. When UV rays try to come to earth they come across these three oxygen atoms and hits them, converting them into oxygen gas (O2) and one more oxygen (O). That prevents the UV rays from coming to earth. Ozone hole means that it’s an area where no ozone or ozone is depleted. The ozone hole topic is so important because if we didn’t care about it we would be dead because if there is no ozone or if there is a hole in it we will be exposed to UV rays which can damage DNA, cells, plants, animals, and eyes. Also UV rays can cause sunburns, which are very painful. Scientists discovered the ozone hole in the 20th century in the Antarctic and also they noticed a strange type of clouds in the polar stratosphere. At that time the scientists did not know that these types of clouds caused the ozone hole. Later in the 1970s scientists figured out that these clouds caused the ozone hole in the Antarctic when they saw that the chlorine gases in the lower stratosphere interacted with tiny cloud particles that form at extremely cold temperatures. This process increases the efficiency of chlorine gas release into reactive forms that can rapidly deplete ozone. Chlorine causes the ozone hole because it reacts with ozone which form oxygen gas (O2) and chlorine monoxide (ClO). The bigger problem is that scientists noticed that the volume of the ozone layer is in steady decline.
The scientists figured out the reason right away when Frank Sherwood Rowland, Chemistry Professor at the University of California at Irvine, and his postdoctoral associate Mario Molina discovered that the long-lived CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbon or Freon) would reach the stratosphere where they would be dissociated by UV light, releasing Cl
The scientists figured out the reason right away when Frank Sherwood Rowland, Chemistry Professor at the University of California at Irvine, and his postdoctoral associate Mario Molina discovered that the long-lived CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbon or Freon) would reach the stratosphere where they would be dissociated by UV light, releasing Cl