Question

Write about the adverse effects of ozone layer depletion. What steps have been taken to mitigate this climatic change?​

Answer 1

Explanation:

World governments agreed in the late 1980s to protect the Earth’s ozone layer by phasing out ozone-depleting substances emitted by human activities, under the Montreal Protocol. In Europe, the Protocol is implemented through EU-wide legislation that not only meets its objectives but also contains stricter, more ambitious measures.

Global action taken under the Montreal Protocol has halted the depletion of the ozone layer and allowed it to start recovering, but much remains to be done to ensure a steady recovery.

The ozone layer

The ozone layer is a natural layer of gas in the upper atmosphere that protects humans and other living things from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun.

Although ozone is present in small concentrations throughout the atmosphere, most (around 90%) exists in the stratosphere, a layer 10 to 50 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. The ozone layer filters out most of the sun's harmful UV radiation and is therefore crucial to life on Earth.

Ozone depletion

Scientists discovered in the 1970s that the ozone layer was being depleted.

Atmospheric concentrations of ozone vary naturally depending on temperature, weather, latitude and altitude, while substances ejected by natural events such as volcanic eruptions can also affect ozone levels.

However, these natural phenomena could not explain the levels of depletion observed and scientific evidence revealed that certain man-made chemicals were the cause. These ozone-depleting substances were mostly introduced in the 1970s in a wide range of industrial and consumer applications, mainly refrigerators, air conditioners and fire extinguishers.

Answer 2

Answer:

Ozone depletion and climate change, or Ozone hole and global warming in more popular terms, are environmental challenges whose connections have been explored and which have been compared and contrasted, for example in terms of global regulation, in various studies and books.

There is widespread scientific interest in better regulation of climate change, ozone depletion and air pollution, as in general the human relationship with the biosphere is deemed of major historiographical and political significance.[1] Already by 1994 the legal debates about respective regulation regimes on climate change, ozone depletion and air pollution were being dubbed "monumental" and a combined synopsis provided.

There are some parallels between atmospheric chemistry and anthropogenic emissions in the discussions which have taken place and the regulatory attempts which have been made. Most important is that the gases causing both problems have long lifetimes after emission to the atmosphere, thus causing problems which are difficult to reverse. However, the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the Montreal Protocol that amended it are seen as success stories, while the Kyoto Protocol on anthropogenic climate change has largely failed. Currently efforts are being undertaken to assess the reasons and to use synergies, for example with regard to data reporting and policy design and further exchanging of information.

While the general public tends to see global warming as a subset of ozone depletion, in fact ozone and chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons(CFCs) and other halocarbons, which are held responsible for ozone depletion, are important greenhouse gasses. Furthermore, natural levels of ozone in both the stratosphere and troposphere have a warming effect.