The Polar Region Was The Most Dangerous To The Ozone Layer

“Some studies suggest that the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free by the end of the century”, was once quoted by American environmentalist Jeff Goodell. The Polar Regions have slowly faded away due to the lack of precautions humans have taken to protect them. The Polar Regions are very fragile and have

Polar Regions The polar regions of the world consist of the northern and southernmost areas of the Earth. The northern areas of the Earth is the more known polar region, the Arctic. The Arctic is located at 66.6° north of the equator. The southern area of the Earth is known as the Antarctic which is located at 66.6° south of the equator. Each of these regions are very susceptible to human impacts such as pollution which has great effects on climate

Molina worked along his academic advisor, Sherwood Rowland, to discover that the most abundantly used product of the era, CFCs, was the most harmful to the ozone layer. They discovered that the properties that make CFCs a better alternative, such as being non-reactive, was the major reason why they were so harmful to the ozone layer. The non-reactiveness of the CFCs allowed them to pass through the lower atmosphere and to reach the stratosphere. CFCs, like ozone, are decomposed by the ultraviolet radiation which forms chlorine, carbon, and fluorine atoms. After this process, the leftover fluorine atoms are able to break apart the ozone atoms into loose oxygen atom or molecules. The termination of the ozone allows ultraviolet radiation to pass through the stratosphere and hit Earth. Molina and Rowland were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their extensive research of CFCs and their effect on the ozone layer. However, a problem was still uprising and is still concerning many environmentalist today, the growing Antarctic ozone

This is mainly because of the Polar Vortex and its ability to trap air and lower it to -80°C. This extreme cold causes Polar Stratospheric Clouds, or PSCs, to form. These clouds form from a reaction of water and nitric acid in very cold temperatures. The CFCs from the incoming winds combine with the PSCs which causes a decomposition in the CFCs to form a bond between two chlorine atoms. In the spring, when the sun is first present in the Antarctic after winter and after the PSCs form, the sun’s ultraviolet rays are able to decompose the two chlorine even further to form single chlorine atoms. Every spring, copious amounts of chlorine atoms are released and mass deterioration of the ozone layer