Save The Ozone!

Production of cfcs — the chemicals that attack earth’s precious atmospheric ozone layer and are being phased out by international agreement — is falling even faster than expected. That’s the good news. The bad news is that cfcs already released are still drifting up through the atmosphere. New satellite data, reported in the current Nature, show that ozone levels over some northern parts of Canada, Scandinavia and Russia were 10% lower this winter than they were just one year ago.

Since ozone loss can increase the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching earth’s surface, the risk of skin cancer may be rising in northern latitudes, as it probably is in southernmost climes. Scientists hope the level of cfcs in the upper atmosphere will peak around the year 2000 and then diminish. What they don’t know is how much ozone will be left, whether the areas of severe ozone depletion will expand toward population centers, and how dangerous a 21st century day in the sun will be.