State the different effects of ozone layer depletion.
Answers
Answer:
Ozone layer depletion causes increased UV radiation levels at the Earth's surface, which is damaging to human health. Negative effects include increases in certain types of skin cancers, eye cataracts and immune deficiency disorders. ... UV rays also affect plant growth, reducing agricultural productivity.
Answer:
Environmental Effects of Ozone Depletion
Reduction in the quantity of Ozone implies increased penetration of solar UV-B radiations to the Earth’s surface. It has devastating effects on human health, animals, plants, microorganisms and air quality.
Effects on Human Health and Animal Health
1. People become vulnerable due to the increase in the incidence of morbidity from eye diseases, skin cancer and infectious diseases.
2. In light skin colored populations, UV_B radiation is the main risk factor for the development of Non-Melanoma skin cancer.
Effects on Plants
1. Psychological processes of plants are affected by UV-B radiation.
2. Response to UV-B also varies voraciously among different species. Therefore, in agriculture, it becomes necessary to use more UV-B tolerant species.
3. In forests and grasslands, it results in changing the composition of species.
4. There are several indirect changes like plant form, biomass allocation of the plant, timing of development phases triggered due to UV-B radiation.
Effects on Aquatic Ecosystems
1. More exposure to UV-B radiation has affected motility in phytoplankton which results in reduced survival rates of these organisms.
2. UV-B radiation has been found to cause damage in the early development stages of fish, crabs, amphibians and various other animals. The more severe effect is a decrease in reproductive capacity.
Effects on Air Quality
1. Reduction of Ozone in upper layers of atmosphere and the direct increase of UV-B radiation penetrating to the lower atmosphere results in higher photo dissociation rates of gasses that control the chemical reactivity of the Troposphere.
2. Products formed due to these reactions are known to have adverse effects on human health, plants and outdoor materials.
3. Increase in tropospheric reactivity will lead to increased production of particulates due to oxidation and nucleation of sulfur due to anthropogenic and natural causes.
Effects on Materials
1. Materials like polymers, naturally occurring bio polymers and some other materials of commercial interest are affected by UV radiations.
2. Increase in solar UV-B content due to partial ozone depletion accelerates the photo degradation rate of these materials and therefore limits their life outdoors.
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