What does the ozone hole have to do with climate change?
There are a few connections between the two, but they are largely separate issues. First, it’s important to know that ozone plays two different roles in the atmosphere. At ground level, “bad ozone” is a pollutant caused by human activities; it’s a major component of health-damaging smog. The same chemical occurs naturally in the stratosphere, and this “good ozone” acts as a shield, filtering out most of the ultraviolet light from the Sun that could otherwise prove deadly to people, animals, and plants. The ozone hole refers to the seasonal depletion of the ozone shield in the lower stratosphere above Antarctica. It occurs as sunlight returns each spring, triggering reactions that involve chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and related molecules produced by industrial processes. These reactions consume huge amounts of ozone over a few weeks’ time. Later in the season, the ozone-depleted air mixes with surrounding air and the ozone layer over Antarctica recovers until the next spring. Other parts
There are a few connections between the two, but they are largely separate issues. First, it’s important to know that ozone plays two different roles in the atmosphere. At ground level, “bad ozone” is a pollutant caused by human activities; it’s a major component of health-damaging smog. The same chemical occurs naturally in the stratosphere, and this “good ozone” acts as a shield, filtering out most of the ultraviolet light from the Sun that could otherwise prove deadly to people, animals, and plants. • Aren’t the computer models used to study climate really simplistic?Global climate models—the software packages that simulate the past, present, and future of our atmosphere—have grown in complexity and quality over the last 10 to 20 years. Yet even the earliest models of the 1960s, which were quite crude by today’s standards, showed that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could increase global temperature by around 5°F (3°C). That projection remains close to the modern cons
