Ozone Layer
Ozone Layer - or ozonosphere, region of the stratosphere containing relatively high concentrations of ozone, located at altitudes of 12–30 mi (19–48 km) above the earth's surface. Ozone in the ozone layer is formed by the action of solar ultraviolet light on oxygen.
The ozone layer prevents most ultraviolet (UV) and other high-energy radiation from penetrating to the earth's Read More...
Ozone Layer - or ozonosphere, region of the stratosphere containing relatively high concentrations of ozone, located at altitudes of 12–30 mi (19–48 km) above the earth's surface. Ozone in the ozone layer is formed by the action of solar ultraviolet light on oxygen. The ozone layer prevents most ultraviolet (UV) and other high-energy radiation from penetrating to the earth's surface but does allow through sufficient ultraviolet rays to support the activation of vitamin D in humans. The full radiation, if unhindered by this filtering effect, would destroy animal tissue. Higher levels of radiation resulting from the depletion of the ozone layer have been linked with increases in skin cancers and cataracts and have been implicated in the decline of certain amphibian species. In 1974 scientists warned that certain industrial chemicals, e.g., chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and to a lesser extent, halons and carbon tetrachloride, could migrate to the stratosphere. There, sunlight could free the chlorine or bromine atoms to form chlorine monoxide or other chemicals, which would deplete upper-atmospheric ozone. A seasonal decrease, or "hole," discovered in 1985 in the ozone layer above Antarctica was the first confirmation of a thinning of the layer. The hole occurs over Antarctica because the extreme cold helps the very high clouds characteristic of that area form tiny ice particles of water and nitric acid, which facilitate the chemical reactions involved. In addition, the polar winds, which follow a swirling pattern, create a confined vortex, trapping the chemicals. When the Antarctic sun rises in August or September and hits the trapped chemicals, a chain reaction begins in which chlorine, bromine (from the halons), and ice crystals react with the ozone and destroy it very quickly. The effect usually lasts through November. There is a corresponding hole over the Arctic that similarly appears in the spring, although in some years warmer winters there do not result in a major depletion of the ozone layer. A global thinning of the ozone layer results as ozone-rich air from the remaining ozone layer flows into the ozone-poor areas. Minimum ozone levels in the Antarctic decreased steadily throughout the 1990s, and less dramatic decreases have been found above other areas of the world. In 2000 (and again in 2003) the hole reached a record size, extending over 10.8 million sq mi (28 million sq km), an area greater than that of North America. In 1987 an international agreement, the Montreal Protocol, was reached on reducing the production of ozone-depleting compounds. Revisions in 1992 called for an end to the production of the worst of such compounds by 1996, and CFC emissions dropped dramatically by 1993. Recovery of the ozone layer, however, is expected to take 50 to 100 years. Damage to the ozone layer can also be caused by sulfuric acid droplets produced by volcanic eruptions. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved. |
Ozone Layer
-
1.
This book is the first comprehensive history of international efforts to protect the ozone layer, the greatest success yet achieved in managing human impacts on the global environment. Its arguments about how this success was achieved are both theoretically novel and of great significance for the management of other global problems, particularly global climate change. The book provides an account of the ozone-depletion issues from the first attempts to develop international action in the 1970s to the mature functioning of the present international regime. It examines the parallel developments of politics and negotiations, scientific understanding and controversy, technological progress, and industry strategy that shaped the issue's development and its effective management. In addition, the book offers important new insights into how the interactions among these domains influenced the formation and adaptation of the ozone regime. Addressing the initial formation of the regime, the book argues that authoritative scientific assessments were crucial in constraining policy debates and shaping negotiated agreements. Assessments gave scientific claims an ability to change policy actors' behavior that the claims themselves, however well known and verified, lacked. Concerning subsequent adaptation of the regime, the book identifies a series of feedbacks between the periodic revision of chemical controls and the strategic responses of affected industries, which drove rapid application of new approaches to reduce ozone-depleting chemicals. These feedbacks, promoted by the regime's novel technology assessment process, allowed worldwide use of the chemicals to decline further and faster than even the boldest predictions, by nearly 95 percent within ten years.
-
2.
Global Environmental Change: Interactions of Science, Policy, and Politics in the United States
by Robert G. Fleagle. 243 pgs.
This study examines how threats to the environment--the facts and probable impacts of global environment change--deserve local, national, and international attention.
-
3.
Taken for a Ride: Detroit's Big Three and the Politics of Pollution (Chap. 17 "Ozone Alert")
by Jack Doyle. 562 pgs.
Doyle, who has been a consultant to the President's Council on Environmental Quality, details how the U.S. auto industry--particularly the Detroit big three auto makers: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler--misled the American people and Congress about cars' harmful emissions. Illustrations.
-
4.
This resource, by a professor of ecology and environmental science, features the latest information on the global environmental crisis in the 20th century. Ideal for student research, it examines the main causes of environmental concern and the key players who raised the environmental consciousness of the public. Following a timeline of key events and a historical overview of the environmental crisis, topical essays examine each of the major areas of enviromental concern: our vanishing wilderness, pollution, overpopulation, and the long-term problem of how we can coexist with our environment without destroying it. Ready-reference features include biographical sketches, the text of key primary documents, a glossary, over 40 tables, charts and illustrations, and an annotated bibliography.
-
5.
Perspectives in Environmental Chemistry (Part II "Atmospheric Environmental Chemistry")
by Donald L. Macalady. 514 pgs.
This book provides an in-depth introduction to a wide variety of topics within environmental chemistry. It is unique in that it consists of state-of-the-art descriptions of research areas written by leading scientists in the field.
-
6.
International Organizations and Environmental Policy (Chap. 4 "Policymaking in International Organizations: The European Union and Ozone Protection")
by Robert V. Bartlett, Priya A. Kurian, Madhu Malik. 284 pgs.
This volume from the Policy Studies Organization provides critical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives on international organizations, the policy implications of these organizations, and the possible roles such agencies can play in international environmental policy. With contributions from a wide range of scholars, the work takes up such topical issues as the Rio Agenda of 1992 and its implementation; the role the European Union might play in environmental policy; the place of environmentalism in the development strategies and tactics of organizations such as the World Bank; and the development of international environmental law.
-
7.
The Third World in Global Environmental Politics (Chap. 4 "The Ozone Protection Regime")
by Marian A. L. Miller. 168 pgs.
-
8.
The Environment and Emerging Development Issues (Chap. 12 "Efficiency Issues and the Montreal Protocol on CFCs")
by Partha R. Dasgupta, Karl-Goran Maler. 354 pgs.
Two and a half billion people are affected directly on a day-to-day basis by the allocation and use of purely local resources. Yet "official" development economics has concentrated on headline international issues and only recently begun to take account of the dependence of poor countries on their natural resources, the link between acute poverty and environmental degradation, and the problems associated with the management of local common property such as soil and soil cover, water, forests and their products, animals and fisheries. In this volume, part of the WIDER Program on the Economics of the Environment, expert contributors provide a set of authoritative studies of emerging development issues, ranging from foundational matters to case studies, original research (in areas where there has been a paucity of work) to survey papers. They address both analytic and empirical issues on the role of environmental resources in the development process, presenting explanations of existing situations and policies for the future. A wealth of interests and backgrounds is represented, and reflected in the cross-fertilization between papers.
-
9.
New Ways to Make International Environmental Law, in American Journal of International Law
by Geoffrey Palmer. 25 pgs.
-
10.
Environmental Politics: Public Costs, Private Rewards (Chap. 7 "Ozone Layers and Oligopoly Profits")
by Michael S. Greve, Fred L. Smith Jr., James Q. Wilson. 212 pgs.
The essays in this volume address the use and manipulation of environmental regulations and policies for political and economic objectives which, they argue, have little or nothing to do with responsibly serving the spirited public interest in a clean environment. The contributors reject the widespread belief that public policies relating to the environment are drafted and executed in the true public interest. They maintain that all too often policies are directed to serve, through peculiar alliances, special interests' political and economic objectives. Seven specific cases of key environmental policies and practices are presented challenging the purposefulness, integrity, and effectiveness of "command and control" environmental policies.
-
11.
Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century (includes "Montreal versus Kyoto: International Cooperation")
by Inge Kaul. 554 pgs.
Edited by the United Nations Development Programme, this collection of papers offers a new rationale and framework for international development cooperation. Its main argument is that in actual practice development cooperation has already moved beyond aid. In the name of aid (i.e. assistance to poor countries), we are today dealing with issues such as the ozone hole, global climate change, HIV, drug trafficking and financial volatility. All of these issues are not really poverty-related. Rather, they concern global housekeeping: ensuring an adequate provision of global public goods.
-
12.
The Environmental Debate: A Documentary History (Includes Montreal Protocol 1987, UN Convention 1992 and 1985 on Ozone Depletion)
by Peninah Neimark, Peter Rhoades Mott. 323 pgs.
This unique collection of primary documents examines the evolution of concern about environmental degradation, pollution, and resource conservation in America from the colonial period to the end of the twentieth century. These documents, ranging from government reports and court cases to the writings of naturalists, economists, and novelists, offer a broad array of perspectives about such major environmental issues as population growth, air pollution, land and water use, toxins and waste disposal, and the use of timber and mining resources. The historical introductions to each part and to each document provide a context for analyzing each document and will aid readers of the book to better understand the various debates over how, why and if our environment needs to be protected. Students and other interested in environmental problems are encouraged to consider all sides of these complex issues before drawing their own conclusions.
Search the entire Questia Library for more on: Ozone Layer
Ozone Layer - Related Topics
Visitors researching the ozone layer also searched on:
$9.95
(One-time charge)
Questia Media and its affiliates. Any advertising or navigational links included on this site are not necessarily
endorsed by the publishers or content providers whose materials appear on this site.