Ozone Layer
Ozone derives from the greek word ozein
which means to smell. It was first
discovered in 1839 by Christian Friedrick
Schonbein who noticed it because of
its distinctive acrid smell. He
discovered this at the University of Basel in
Switzerland. Ozone is
merely oxygen, but not the type we breath. Ozone, O3 has
three compounds
while oxygen has only two. Ozone is reac- tive, meaning it does
not stay
still, and wants to go back to its original state, with two
compounds,
O2. This is why ozone isharmful. Ozone always wants to let go
of its third
compound, and if this compound reacts with other substances, it
could be
damaging, especially to humans. When discussing with the ozone
layer, one should
know the four major atmosphere levels on earth. The
troposphere which is between
zero and fifteen kilometers in altitude and has
tempera- ture ranges from two
hundred to two hundred ninety kelvins. The
second is the stratosphere which
ranges from fifteen to approxi- mately fifty
kilometers in altitude and has
temperature ranges from two hundred to two
hundred fifty kelvins. The third
level in the atmosphere is mesosphere. This
level ranges from fifty to
eighty-five kilometers in altitude and has
temperature rangesbetween one hundred
eighty and two hundred fifty kelvins.
Finally, the thermosphere is the final
level in the atmosphere. It's range is
eighty-five to one hundred forty
kilometers and also temperatures as high as
four hundred sixty kelvins. Society
has been widely addressed with the many
problems that we are having in our
environment today. A major problem is that
of CFCs. CFC stands for
Chlorofluorocarbons which are found in many of
the aerosol spray cans. In
December of 1973, Rowland and Molina
discovered that CFCs can destroy the ozone
in the stratosphere. In June 1975,
the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC)
sued the Consumers Product
Safety Commission for a band of CFCs used in aerosol
spray cans. United
States's fifth largest manufacturers of aerosol sprays
announced that they
will reduce the amount of CFCs used in there products. But
as things started
to get better, The Consumer Product Safety Commission rejected
NRDC's law
suit in July stating that there was insufficient evidence towards the
amount
of harm the CFCs were doing to the ozone layer. On September 1976, a
report
was released which re-enforced Rowland and Molina's hypothesis, but
also
stated that the govern- ment action on CFC regulations should be
postponed. This
report also stated that the CFCs can initiate climatic
changes and contribute to
the warming of the earth's atmosphere, i.e., the
greenhouse effect. May 1977,
several government agencies announced joint
plans to limit, but not eliminate
uses of CFCs in aerosol spray cans. But on
February of the following year, the
government decided to postpone the
regulations on CFCs used in refrigeration,
air conditioning, solvents, and
other industrial processes. With all the new
regulations taking affect and
being postponed, nothing was getting accomplished,
but finally, on October
1978, aerosols where banned in the United States. August
of 1981, satellite
pictures showed that over one percent of the ozone was lost
due to CFCs.
Then, in October of 1984, research groups found a forty percent
loss of ozone
over Antarctica. In August of 1985, satellite photos confirmed the
existence
of an ozone hole over Antarctica. Even though many were trying to
reduce the
amount of CFCs in their products, there were still some out there who
wanted
to make the fast buck. February 1988, three US senators asked Du Pont to
stop
making CFCs but the chairman denied the requested. Three weeks later,
the
chairman agrees to ease manufacturing of chemicals, but only when
substitutes
were available. Eight in a million of the widely scattered
molecules are ozone
in our atmosphere--this is what is responsible for the
rising of temperature.
Ozone takes in ultra-violet rays when they come
from the sun and converts the
radiation to heat and chemical energy. The
ozone layer also seals earth from the
many of the other powerful radiation
rays that the sun gives off. Splitting of
oxygen molecules depends upon the
intense radiation, therefore, the greatest
ozone production is over the
tropics. The ozone is dangerous to us because is
causes many types of skin
cancer such as malignant melanoma--a very deadly
cancer which causes death to
forty percent of all recorded cases of cancer. Many
people predict that the
ozone layer would cause thirty thousand skin cancers
just in the United
States alone, and over five hundred-thousand world wide.
Cancer, though,
is only one of the few problems that the ozone layer causes. For
example
small organisms such as plankton in the sea which is the aquatic food
which
serves as the basic food chain would be destroyed and therefore
destroying
the food chain--not only the sea food chain, but also the land.
Nobody knows
what exact reaction there may be if the ozone continues to break
down as it is
now. Besides rays from the sun, photon can also come in the
Earth and be
destructive. Outer portions of the atmosphere, i.e., the
thermosphere, the
energy from the photon is used to photodisociate (break
down) oxygen molecules.
Ozone is an unstable compound, if it is left to
itself it will turn into O2, but
this takes place very slowly in the presents
of light. Air pollution increases
ozone destruction as show below. NO,
nitrogen oxide, is air pollution. The
troposphere has too much ozone and
ozone is harmful to us if is too close. Ten
to fifteen molecules per million
of ozone in the atmosphere is enough to kill
small animals. Since the number
is eight per million already, it is not long
until it will get extremely
destructive. Shown below is how ozone can be
created, ozone being O3 and NO2
being pollution. The hole in the ozone layer is
become bigger every day. If
we do not do anything to stop it, it will eventually
kill us. There is so
much we can do--but we must be willing to do it. Time is
what we have
no
Bibliography
1. Auliciems, Andris and Ian Burton. Perception
and Awareness Of Air
Pollution In Toronto. Working Paper No. 3. Univer-
sity of Toronto, 1970. 2.
Fishman, Jack and Robert Kalish. Global Alert:
The Ozone Pollution Crisis. New
York: Plenum Press, 1990. 3. Mainwaring,
S. J. and W. Strauss. Air Pollution.
Balti- more: Edward Arnold, 1984. 4.
Oxtoby, David W., Norman H. Nachtribe and
Wade A. Freeman. Chemistry:
Science of Change. Toronto: Saunders College
Publishing, 1990. 5. Roan,
Sharon. Ozone Crisis: The 15-Year Evolution Of A
Sudden Global Emergency.
Toronto: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1989. 6. Young,
Louise B. Earth's
Aura. First Edition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1977.