Science of ozone layer basis

Science of ozone layer basis

The ozone layer protects the entire life from harmful solar radiation, but human actions have damaged this shield. Less protection from ultraviolet (UV) ozone, over time, harms crops and leads to an increase in the rate of skin carcinoma and cataract.

What is the ozone layer?

The ozone layer is a deep layer in the stratosphere surrounding the Earth, which contains a large amount of ozone. The layer protects the entire Earth from the most harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

It is interesting to note that it is this ultraviolet radiation that forms ozone in the first place. Ozone is a special form of oxygen, consisting of three oxygen atoms, rather than the usual two oxygen atoms. Usually this happens when some type of radiation or electric discharge separates two atoms into an oxygen molecule (O2), which can then be recombined individually with other oxygen molecules to form ozone (O3).

The ozone layer is increasingly assessed by the public when it is realized that certain chemical chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons enter the stratosphere, where through a complex series of chemical reactions they destroy part of the ozone. As a result of this discovery, an international treaty was signed in 1973, called the Montreal Protocol, and the production of these chemicals was significantly reduced.

Since then, the ozone layer has begun to recover as a result of these efforts, but there is a science that now assumes that major eruptions of volcanoes (mainly El Chichon in 1983 and Pinotubo in 1991) that have occurred since then began monitoring ozone with satellites in the late 1970s, but this can contribute to depletion of the ozone layer.

The number of overlapping stratospheric ozone on a certain day and in this place varies considerably. Due to the vertical circulation of air, both in the troposphere and in the stratosphere, there may be more or less levels of ozone that protect against ultraviolet rays. In addition, life at high altitudes provides people with multiple ultraviolet radiation with low radiation levels.

Although stratospheric ozone, which protects us from the sun, is good, there is also ozone created near the earth by sunlight, which interacts with air pollution in the city, which is bad for human health. This causes breathing problems in some people and usually occurs in the summer, when city pollution accumulates during stagnant air conditions associated with high pressure areas.