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Human Cooperation Can Restore Climate Patterns: The Case of the Ozone Layer and the Southern Jet Stream
Emissions from the chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons used as refrigerants and aerosols didn't just burn a hole in the ozone layer. They also shifted the Southern Hemisphere's jet stream south towards Antarctica.
The world awakened to the hole in the ozone layer in 1985, which scientists attributed it to ozone-depleting substances. Two years later, in Montreal, the world agreed to ban the halogen compounds causing the massive hole over Antarctica. Research now shows that those chemicals didn't just cut a hole in the ozone layer, they also warmed up the Arctic.
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Saving the Ozone Layer 30 Years Ago Slowed Global Warming. Can Similar Cooperation Now Solve the Climate Crisis?
The Montreal Protocol, a 1987 international treaty prohibiting the production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to save the ozone layer, was the first successful multilateral agreement to successfully slow the rate of global warming, according to new research. Now, experts argue that similar measures may lend hope to the climate crisis.
An ozone depleting gas is on the decline after rising since 2012, according to preliminary data reported by scientists yesterday, as the New York Times reported.
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Australia is sweating through yet another record breaking heat wave, with the past four days among the country's 10 hottest days on record, the Bureau of Meteorology announced Tuesday.
By John Bryson
On Jan. 1, Singapore introduced a "no smoking zone" along a three kilometer (approximately 1.9 mile) stretch of Orchard Road—one of the city's busiest shopping districts. It sounds controversial—restricting people's right to smoke in public spaces, as a way of tackling air pollution and improving public health. But smoking is not actually banned down the length of Orchard Road: instead, smokers will be concentrated in 40 designated smoking areas, spaced 100 to 200 meters (approximately 330 to 660 feet) apart.
After decades of thinning, Earth's ozone layer is slowing recovering, the United Nations (UN) said in a report released Monday, highlighting how international co-operation can help tackle major environmental issues.
The ozone layer, which protects humans and other species from the sun's highly hazardous ultraviolet radiation, has been declining since the 1970s due to the effect of chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and similar gases found in refrigerants and aerosol spray cans.
In the past few decades, the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica has gotten less salty and has warmed at roughly twice the rate of global oceans overall.
Now, in a new study, scientists found convincing evidence that these trends are the result of two human influences: climate change from greenhouse gas emissions and the depletion of the ozone layer.
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A federal judge ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take action to fight air pollution entering New York and Connecticut from five other states, Reuters reported.
A new study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows an "unexpected and persistent increase" in global emissions of an ozone-depleting chemical even though an international treaty forced production to completely halt by 2010.
NOAA scientists suggest that emissions are most likely from new, unreported production from an unidentified source in eastern Asia.
The Earth's protective ozone layer is not recovering uniformly from the damage caused to it by industry and other human activities. And scientists are not sure why it isn't.
An international research team says the ozone, which protects humans and other species from harmful ultraviolet radiation, is continuing to recover at the poles. But recovery at lower latitudes, where far more people live, is not.