Recently, the public is increasingly concerned about environmental issues - protecting the environment, animals, reducing the amount of harmful and hazardous emissions. Surely everyone has also heard about what an ozone hole is, and that there are a lot of them in the modern stratosphere of the Earth. It is.
Modern anthropogenic activities and technological development threaten the existence of animals and plants on Earth, as well as human life itself.
What is the ozone hole?
The ozone layer is the protective shell of the blue planet, which is located in the stratosphere. Its height is about twenty-five kilometers from the earth's surface. And this layer is formed from oxygen, which, under the influence of solar radiation, undergoes chemical transformations. The local decrease in the concentration of ozone (in the common people this is the well-known "hole") is currently caused by many reasons. First of all, this, of course, is human activity (both industrial and everyday household). There are, however,opinion that the ozone layer is destroyed by the influence of exclusively natural phenomena not related to people.
Anthropogenic influence
Having understood what the ozone hole is, it is necessary to find out what kind of human activity contributes to its appearance. First of all, these are aerosols. Every day we use deodorants, hair sprays, eau de toilette with spray bottles and often do not think about the fact that this adversely affects the protective layer of the planet.
The fact is that the compounds that are present in the cans we are used to (including bromine and chlorine) readily react with oxygen atoms. Therefore, the ozone layer is destroyed, turning after such chemical reactions into completely useless (and often harmful) substances.
Destructive compounds for the ozone layer are also present in air conditioners that save the summer heat, as well as in cooling equipment. The widespread industrial activity of man also weakens earthly defenses. It is oppressed by industrial emissions into the atmosphere, water (some of the harmful substances evaporate over time), pollute the stratosphere and vehicle exhaust gases. The latter, as statistics show, is becoming more and more every year. Rocket fuel also has a negative effect on the ozone layer.
Natural influence
Knowing what an ozone hole is, you must also have an idea of how many of them are above the surface of our planet. The answer is disappointing: there are many gaps in earthly protection. They are small and oftenare not a hole, but a very thin remaining layer of ozone. However, there are also two huge unprotected spaces. This is the Arctic and Antarctic ozone hole.
The stratosphere above the Earth's poles contains almost no protective layer at all. What is it connected with? After all, there are no cars and industrial production. It's all about natural influence, the second reason for the destruction of the ozone layer. Polar vortices occur when warm and cold air currents collide. These gas formations contain nitric acid in large quantities, which, under the influence of very low temperatures, reacts with ozone.
The environmentalists began to sound the alarm only in the twentieth century. Destructive ultraviolet rays that make their way to the ground without hitting the ozone barrier can cause skin cancer in humans, as well as the death of many animals and plants (primarily marine). Thus, almost all compounds that destroy the protective layer of our planet have been banned by international organizations. It is believed that even if humanity abruptly stops any negative impact on ozone in the stratosphere, the holes that currently exist will not disappear very soon. This is due to the fact that the harmful substances freons, which have already made their way up, are able to exist independently in the atmosphere for decades.
