Jakarta –
The recovery of the ozone hole has been met with a number of less promising new analyses. Recent research shows that the ozone hole is very large and has been ‘lasting’ for the past four years.
This study suggests that the ozone hole may not recover in the coming decades as previously expected. On the other hand, some researchers in this field are not convinced by this research and are optimistic that ozone hole recovery still looks promising, despite some unfortunate mistakes in recent years.
In the new study, scientists at Otago University in New Zealand, conducted a trend analysis of the ozone hole’s daily and monthly fluctuations between 2004 and 2022. They concluded that the ozone hole has been growing over the past four years and that there is now much less ozone gas in the center of the hole. compared to 19 years ago.
“This means that the hole is not only larger, but also deeper for most of the spring,” said Hannah Kessenich, lead author of the study and PhD candidate in Otago University’s Department of Physics, quoted from IFL Science.
The ozone layer is a region of the stratosphere between 15 and 30 kilometers above the Earth’s surface that has a higher concentration of ozone gas than the rest of the atmosphere. It acts as an invisible shield for our planet, absorbing most of the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.
In the 1970s and 1980s, scientists discovered holes in the ozone layer over Antarctica, sparking one of the biggest environmental concerns in recent times.
It turns out the layer is eroded by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), man-made chemicals used as refrigerants and solvents that can act as ozone-depleting substances once carried into the stratosphere.
The ozone hole at the South Pole is constantly moving and changing, growing and shrinking with the seasons. The ozone hole grows larger from August to October as the Southern Hemisphere enters spring and temperatures begin to rise. It continues to grow until around mid-October when temperatures warm to such an extent that the polar vortex weakens and eventually breaks down.
In recent years, there have been many reports that the hole in the ozone layer appears to be shrinking and will probably fully recover within a few decades, mainly thanks to the successful phasing out of CFCs.
This latest analysis argues that this optimistic vision is not necessarily true. Instead, they argue that climate change appears to be driving new sources of ozone depletion, causing the hole to grow larger.
However, other researchers in this field believe that the new study may overstate the problem. The hole in the ozone layer varies from year to year due to a variety of factors, which some scientists say cannot be fully explained by new analysis from Otago University researchers.
As one example, in January 2022 the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption occurred, a large underwater explosion that pumped large amounts of water vapor into the Earth’s atmosphere and may have had an impact on ozone concentrations in the stratosphere. Therefore, the 2022 data is imprecise due to this strange event and therefore does not represent the bigger picture. Many other factors like these may also play a role.
“I’m not convinced by the results of this study,” said Dr Martin Jucker, lecturer at the University of New South Wales and Associate Investigator at the ARC Center of Excellence for Climate Extremes.
“The results are highly dependent on the large ozone hole we see in 2020-2022. However, existing literature has identified causes for this large ozone hole: Smoke from the 2019 forest fires and volcanic eruptions (La Soufriere), as well as a general relationship between the polar stratosphere and El Niño. Southern Oscillation. We know that during La Niña years, the polar vortex in the stratosphere tends to be stronger and colder than usual, which means ozone concentrations will also be lower in those years. In “2020-2022 saw three rare La Niñas, but this relationship was never mentioned in this study,” explained Dr Jucker.
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(rns/rns)
2023-11-23 22:45:21
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