ozone is an invisible upper atmospheric
gas that protects all forms of life on
earth for most of the sun's damaging
radiation radiation that can cause skin
cancer I damage and suppression of the
immune system the harvesting of fish and
plant life are also affected a vast
amount of aquatic life has its
beginnings in the oceans near Antarctica
false-color imagery of the South Pole
from NASA's Nimbus seven satellite
provides scientists with a roadmap of
daily changes in the ozone by tracking
this imagery for the past nine years
they have discovered a trend normal day
each spring over Antarctica a hole in
the ozone develops and it has been
getting larger year by year to date as
much as fifty to sixty percent of the
ozone in this area has been lost these
discoveries prompted a coordinated
series of you a dark pink ozone
experiments west VA an international
effort including some 150 scientists and
engineers of NASA National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration National
Science Foundation and Industry work
for months to study this alarming
environmental issue scientists used
ground-based instruments and launched
balloon born payloads to sample air
chemistry at mcmurdo station in
Antarctica at the same time NASA's dc-8
flying laboratory study the lower
atmosphere making long missions from
Punta Arenas Chile into the area of
ozone depletion NASA's high-flying er-2
plane carrying a single pilot and a
handful of sampling instruments feed
directly into a layer of atmosphere
where the ozone was depleted a number of
activities contributing to ozone loss
have been pinpointed by the scientific
and policy community no longer Duke and
aerosol products contain
chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs but these
harmful gases still get into the
atmosphere because they are used as
refrigerants fire retardants phone
blowing agents and solvents as long as
this persists ozone will continue to be
lost initial findings from the summers
ozone expedition verify that there is a
complex interplay between CFCs
chlorine-containing gases and the
meteorology in certain parts of the
world ice crystals in the upper
atmosphere convert the gases into a
byproduct that destroys ozone these ice
crystals usually early form in the
atmosphere the South Pole because it
gets so cold this may explain why other
parts of the world aren't dramatically
affected by the depletion of science I
still do not understand all the
mechanisms of change but thanks to the
work of so many we will soon have a more
complete understanding of ozone loss and
its threat to the world environment in
the early 1990s a new generation of
atmospheric satellites will probe even
further into the problem
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