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Ozone depletion

A greenhouse warming connection

Nature volume 392, pages 551–552 (1998)Cite this article

On page 589 of this issue1, Shindell and colleagues tackle the question of how rising levels of greenhouse gases will affect ozone (O3) depletion over the Arctic in the years to come. Their conclusion is tentative but worrisome — that despite reductions in emissions of O3-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), levels of O3 will continue to fall, with especially severe declines occurring in the years 2010 to 2019.

The direct radiative effects of the build-up of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases have led to a gradual cooling of the stratosphere, with the largest changes in temperature occurring in the upper stratosphere, well above the region of peak O3 concentrations2. Build-up of greenhouse gases has been associated with global warming, which occurs as more of the heat radiated from Earth's surface is trapped in the troposphere; as a consequence, less heat reaches the overlying stratosphere, which cools. Cooling of the upper stratosphere during the past several decades would lead to slightly higher concentrations of O3 due to the temperature dependence of the rates of several key reactions. But this effect has been masked by depletion of upper stratospheric O3 driven by the release of industrial CFCs (ref. 3). It has also been suggested that the abundance of O3 in the lower stratosphere may be reduced on longer timescales due to changes in circulation induced by the so-called ‘doubled CO2’ environment4. Because the greatest concentrations of O3 exist in the lower stratosphere, this region has the strongest influence on the total column abundance of O3 (the integrated amount of O3 between the surface and the top of the atmosphere), which in turn affects exposure to ultraviolet radiation.

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Figure 1: Ozone levels and minimum temperature over the Arctic (63 to 90° N), 1979-98.

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  1. the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 91109, California, USA

    Ross J. Salawitch

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Salawitch, R. A greenhouse warming connection. Nature 392, 551–552 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/33287

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