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Atmospheric chemistry

Uncertain road to ozone recovery

Nature volume 398, pages 663–664 (1999)Cite this article

The manufacture and emission of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), our inadvertent global experiment in modifying the Earth's stratosphere, has damaged the ozone layer for decades to come. The Montreal Protocol, which was agreed in 1987 and revised several times in the 1990s, and has the aim of reducing global emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals, has gone a significant way to solving the ‘ozone problem’1. However, as described by Montzka and colleagues on page 690 of this issue2, the road to ozone recovery remains uncertain.

The authors report the good news that, by 1997, the lower-atmospheric burden of ozone-depleting halogen compounds (chloro- and bromocarbons) had declined by 3% from its 1993-94 peak; and they provide a reminder that this decline is almost entirely due to the rapid atmospheric removal of the solvent methyl chloroform (CH3CCl3), global emissions of which are now virtually zero. But concentrations of other halocarbons — carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) and CFC-11 (CCl3F), for instance — are falling more slowly, and those of others such as CFC-12 (CCl2F2) are still rising. If the decline in emissions of these other halocarbon species does not gather pace, the overall fall in halogen concentrations in the atmosphere will stall sometime during the next decade.

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Figure 1: Ozone-destroying trace gases now and in the future —observed6,15,16 and predicted4 atmospheric chlorine loading, in parts per billion of Cl, from various halocarbons.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSIRO Atmospheric Research/CRC Southern Hemisphere Meteorology, PMB 1, Aspendale, 3195, Victoria, Australia

    Paul J. Fraser

  2. Earth System Science Department, University of California, Irvine, 92697-3100, California, USA

    Michael J. Prather

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  1. Paul J. Fraser
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  2. Michael J. Prather
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Fraser, P., Prather, M. Uncertain road to ozone recovery. Nature 398, 663–664 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/19418

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