According to recent UN research, the Earth’s protective ozone layer is slowly but obviously repairing at a rate that would close the hole above Antarctica in around 43 years.
A once-every-four-years scientific assessment discovered that recovery is underway, more than 35 years after every nation on the planet agreed to stop producing chemicals that eat away at the ozone layer in the Earth’s atmosphere that protects the planet from harmful radiation linked to skin cancer, cataracts, and crop damage.
“In the upper stratosphere and in the ozone hole we see things getting better,” said Paul Newman, co-chair of the scientific assessment.
American Meteorological Society meeting in Denver says progress is gradual
According to a paper delivered Monday at the American Meteorological Society meeting in Denver, progress is gradual. According to the analysis, the worldwide average amount of ozone 18 miles (30 kilometers) aloft in the atmosphere will not return to pre-thinning levels until around 2040. And the Arctic will not return to normal until 2045.
The analysis stated that Antarctica, where the layer is so thin that there is an annual enormous gaping hole in the layer, will not be fully repaired until 2066.
Scientists and environmentalists around the world have long hailed efforts to close the ozone hole, which arose from a 1987 agreement known as the Montreal Protocol, which banned a class of chemicals commonly used in refrigerants and aerosols, as one of the most significant ecological victories for humanity.
According to Newman, a chief Earth scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the two main molecules that eat away at ozone occur at lower altitudes in the atmosphere. According to the paper, chlorine levels have declined 11.5% since their peak in 1993, and bromine levels, which are more efficient at consuming ozone but are at lower levels in the air, have dropped 14.5% since their peak in 1999.
The fact that bromine and chlorine levels have “stopped increasing and are decreasing” is “a true monument to the efficiency of the Montreal Protocol,” according to Newman.
“There has been a sea change in the way our society deals with ozone-depleting substances,” said David W. Fahey, co-chair of the scientific panel and director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s chemical sciences lab.
People could go into a store decades ago and buy a can of refrigerants that eat away at the ozone, punch a hole in it, and pollute the atmosphere, according to Fahey. Not only are the toxins illegal, but they are also rarely seen in people’s homes or cars, having been replaced by cleaner chemicals.
Natural weather patterns in Antarctica influence ozone hole levels
Natural weather patterns in Antarctica influence ozone hole levels, which peak in the autumn. And if the gaps have widened in recent years, the general trend is one of healing, according to Newman.
This is “saving 2 million people every year from skin cancer,” UN Environment Programme Director Inger Andersen told The Associated Press in an email earlier this year.
A few years ago, emissions of one of the banned compounds, chlorofluorocarbon-11 (CFC-11), ceased to decrease and began to rise. Rogue emissions were detected in parts of China but have since returned to normal levels, according to Newman.
A third generation of these substances, known as HFC, was prohibited a few years ago for being a heat-trapping greenhouse gas rather than for destroying the ozone layer. According to the current analysis, the prohibition would prevent an additional 0.5 to 0.9 degrees (0.3 to 0.5 degrees Celsius) of warming.
The paper also warned that efforts to artificially chill the world by releasing particles into the sky to reflect sunlight would cause the ozone layer in Antarctica to deplete by up to 20%.