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The importance of ozone is defined by the fact that it protects the earth from harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. The ozone layer is found in the upper regions of the stratosphere where it protects the earth from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun. These radiations can cause skin cancer in humans.
- 8 min
- In the stratosphere, ozone is mainly emitted by ultraviolet radiation. When even low-energy ultraviolet radiation is absorbed by an ozone molecule,...
- Ozone molecules (O3) have three atoms of oxygen. There are two distinct layers of ozone present in the Earth’s atmosphere. The troposphere, the lay...
- They kill ozone molecules as chlorine and bromine atoms come into contact with ozone in the stratosphere. About 100,000 ozone molecules will be kil...
- According to a recent report, the ozone layer is beginning to regenerate and has the ability to fully restore. Published in Nature, a research pape...
- In the stratosphere (a layer of the atmosphere between 10 and 40 km above us), much of the ozone remains where it serves as a barrier to protect th...
- Overview
- Location in Earth’s atmosphere
- Ozone creation and destruction
ozone layer, region of the upper atmosphere, between roughly 15 and 35 km (9 and 22 miles) above Earth’s surface, containing relatively high concentrations of ozone molecules (O3). Approximately 90 percent of the atmosphere’s ozone occurs in the stratosphere, the region extending from 10–18 km (6–11 miles) to approximately 50 km (about 30 miles) ab...
In the midlatitudes the peak concentrations of ozone occur at altitudes from 20 to 25 km (about 12 to 16 miles). Peak concentrations are found at altitudes from 26 to 28 km (about 16 to 17 miles) in the tropics and from about 12 to 20 km (about 7 to 12 miles) toward the poles. The lower height of the peak-concentration region in the high latitudes largely results from poleward and downward atmospheric transport processes that occur in the middle and high latitudes and the reduced height of the tropopause (the transition region between the troposphere and stratosphere).
Most of the remaining ozone occurs in the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere that extends from Earth’s surface up to the stratosphere. Near-surface ozone often results from interactions between certain pollutants (such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds), strong sunlight, and hot weather. It is one of the primary ingredients in photochemical smog, a phenomenon that plagues many urban and suburban areas around the world, especially during the summer months.
The production of ozone in the stratosphere results primarily from the breaking of the chemical bonds within oxygen molecules (O2) by high-energy solar photons. This process, called photodissociation, results in the release of single oxygen atoms, which later join with intact oxygen molecules to form ozone. Rising atmospheric oxygen concentrations some two billion years ago allowed ozone to build up in Earth’s atmosphere, a process that gradually led to the formation of the stratosphere. Scientists believe that the formation of the ozone layer played an important role in the development of life on Earth by screening out lethal levels of UVB radiation (ultraviolet radiation with wavelengths between 315 and 280 nm) and thus facilitating the migration of life-forms from the oceans to land.
The amount of ozone in the stratosphere varies naturally throughout the year as a result of chemical processes that create and destroy ozone molecules and as a result of winds and other transport processes that move ozone molecules around the planet. Over the course of several decades, however, human activities substantially altered the ozone layer. Ozone depletion, the global decrease in stratospheric ozone observed since the 1970s, is most pronounced in polar regions, and it is well correlated with the increase of chlorine and bromine in the stratosphere. Those chemicals, once freed by UV radiation from the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other halocarbons (carbon-halogen compounds) that contain them, destroy ozone by stripping away single oxygen atoms from ozone molecules. Depletion is so extensive that so-called ozone holes (regions of severely reduced ozone coverage) form over the poles during the onset of their respective spring seasons. The largest such hole—which has spanned more than 20.7 million square km (8 million square miles) on a consistent basis since 1992—appears annually over Antarctica between September and November.
As the amount of stratospheric ozone declines, more UV radiation reaches Earth’s surface, and scientists worry that such increases could have significant effects on ecosystems and human health. The concern over exposure to biologically harmful levels of UV radiation has been the main driver of the creation of international treaties such as the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer and its amendments, designed to protect Earth’s ozone layer. The Montreal Protocol has been a success: some 99 percent of the ozone-depleting chemicals regulated by the treaty have been phased out since its adoption in 1987. Compliance with international treaties that phased out the production and delivery of many ozone-depleting chemicals, combined with upper stratospheric cooling due to increased carbon dioxide, is thought to have contributed to the shrinking of the ozone holes over the poles and to slightly higher stratospheric ozone levels overall. Studies note that continued reductions in ozone-depleting chemicals that follow the schedule proposed by the Montreal Protocol and its follow-up agreements are expected to result in a return to 1980-level ozone concentrations above the poles by as early as 2040, with the closure of the ozone holes above Antarctica by about 2066 and above the Arctic by about 2045.
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- Donald Wuebbles
The ozone layer, in the stratosphere, is where about 90% of the ozone in the Earth system is found. But ozone makes up only one to ten out of every million molecules in the ozone layer. There isn't much of it, but ozone is powerful, able to block the most harmful radiation.
Mar 13, 2023 · Ozone is a gas present naturally within Earth’s atmosphere. It is formed of three oxygen atoms (giving it the chemical formula O 3 ). Its structure makes it unstable: it can be easily formed and broken down through interaction with other compounds.
Feb 13, 2023 · 7.3: Depletion of the Ozone Layer. The earth's stratospheric ozone layer plays a critical role in absorbing ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun. In the last thirty years, it has been discovered that stratospheric ozone is depleting as a result of anthropogenic pollutants.
The ozone layer gets its name from ozone gas, an allotrope, or form, of the element oxygen. Ozone gas has become so synonymous with the ozone layer that people now refer to the layer as "the ozone." However, ozone gas doesn't just coat our earth's stratosphere.
Most ozone (about 90%) resides in a layer that begins between 6 and 10 miles (10 and 17 kilometers) above the Earth's surface and extends up to about 30 miles (50 kilometers). This region of the atmosphere is called the stratosphere. The ozone in this region is commonly known as the ozone layer.
