What’s causing this depletion, and how does it factor into the overall climate change equation?
Dr. Hipskind: That’s kind of a classic example of the value of NASA’s science capability to really understand these major global problems. We did some of the pioneering work with partners from around the country and, in fact, around the world, back in the late 1980s. NASA had developed these airborne platforms, which were really the only systems capable of making direct measurements into the ozone hole in the southern hemisphere. Those field campaigns that were done, both in the Antarctic in 1987 and then in the Arctic over a series of campaigns in the late 1980s to early 1990s, demonstrated very conclusively that the ozone loss in the polar stratosphere was linked to manmade chlorine. That’s a huge success story in that scientific evidence was used to make international environmental policy – the Montreal Protocol – and the evidence is very clear that the Montreal Protocol is doing its job. The amount of chlorine getting into the stratosphere has definitely been declining. NTB: Will t
