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Global warming fix would damage ozone layer |
| TheAllINeed.com |
(NC&T/UM) They warn that this artificial attempt to cool the planet could destroy between one-fourth and three-fourths of the ozone layer above the Arctic, delay the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole by as much as 70 years, and cause ozone thinning in mid-latitude regions.
The study, by Simone Tilmes of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Salawitch and Rolf Müller of the German Research Center Jülich, appeared in the April 24 edition of Science Express, in advance of publication in Science.
Some climate scientists have proposed a plan to regularly inject sulfate particles into the stratosphere to counteract global warming, theorizing that the sulfate aerosols would reflect sunlight and cool the planet.
Natural occurrences of sulfur particles spewing into the stratosphere from major volcanic eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo in the Philipines in 1991, have reduced surface temperatures on Earth for the several-year period of enhanced aerosol loading. Yet the cooling effect of Mount Pinatubo caused a two to three percent reduction in the thickness of the ozone layer at mid-latitudes and larger losses in the Arctic.
Tilmes, Salawitch and Müller studied the effects of the Mount Pinatubo eruption, analyzing the chemical actions of sulfur in the atmosphere and modeling the potential impact of geoengineering. They found that adding sulfur to the atmosphere would spark chemical reactions leading to the liberation of chlorine, a compound known to destroy ozone, with the largest effects occurring during winters when the Arctic stratosphere was particularly cold.
 | | Ross Salawitch. (Photo: U. Maryland) |
"Adding sulfur to the stratosphere would undo our efforts of the past two decades to restore the ozone layer," says Salawitch, who was involved in studies that helped support the Montreal Protocol, the 1987 landmark international treaty that restricted industrial production of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and other ozone depleting substances.
In their analysis of current geoengineering proposals, the Tilmes group found that injections of small sulfate particles over the next 20 years could reduce the ozone layer in the Arctic by 100 to 230 Dobson Units, a common measure of the thickness of the ozone layer. The average thickness of the ozone layer in the Northern Hemisphere is 300 to 450 Dobson Units.
"Climate change is a very serious issue, and we need to continue to research mitigation strategies to avert a climate catastrophe from a broad perspective," says Salawitch. "Our paper does not preclude geoengineering approaches, but we believe this specific idea would have serious undesirable consequences."
A professor in the University of Maryland departments of chemistry and biochemistry, atmospheric and oceanic science, and Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, Salawitch contributes expertise to a variety of NASA-led atmospheric composition and climate change research projects.
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