Access

Published online 7 May 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.456

News

Ozone data conflict resolved

Disturbing laboratory measurements put down to impurities

Quirin Schiermeier

Two years after puzzling experiments threatened to shatter established models of ozone depletion in the atmosphere, Taiwanese chemists have published data that support the currently accepted theory.

The standard model for how chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) destroy ozone in the Arctic and Antarctic stratospheres was called into question when experiments challenged the rate at which chlorine peroxide (Cl2O2), generated when CFCs decompose, is split apart by light (photolysed).

Comments

Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email webadmin@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.

  • The Antarctic had a fat ozone "hole" during the 1957-8 International Geophysical Year and most likely during the Battle of Hastings, too. Contemporary brouhaha resets refrigerant patent protection abetted by politics skimming cashflow. Religion is singularly incapable of filling its collection plates. Test of faith!

    • 07 May, 2009
    • Posted by: "Uncle Al" Schwartz

  • Since the impurities are critical, which set of experimental results most accurately reflect atmospheric conditions?

    • 12 May, 2009
    • Posted by: Dallas Noyes