Raging Wildfires Are Punching a New Hole in the Ozone Layer
Raging Wildfires Are Punching a New Hole in the Ozone Layer
Another insidious effect of climate change that puts all of us in danger.
Miriam Fauzia, Innovation Reporter at the Daily Beast
Updated Feb. 28, 2022 3:37PM ET Published Feb. 28, 2022 3:22PM ET
https://www.thedailybeast.com/wildfire-smoke-is-leading-to-a-new-ozone-layer-hole-caused-by-unique-chemistry?ref=home
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From the Australian bushfire crisis in 2019 to 2020 to the deadly wildfire outbreaks in California, wildfires are no longer episodic hazards but direct products of climate change.
The Australian bushfires alone—which scorched over 42 million acres of land and killed millions of animals and hundreds of people—are estimated to have ejected 1 million tons of smoke into Earth’s atmosphere, as high as 22 miles above the planet’s surface. In the aftermath, scientists discovered the fires helped increase global temperatures by 1 degree Celsius for about six months.
Even worse, however, the smoke punctured a large hole in the ozone right above Antarctica. For a while this has been inexplicable—scientists had no way of understanding how the two events could be connected. But in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, atmospheric researchers MIT show how smoke particles released by wildfires unleash a chemical chain reaction that decimates the ozone, creating another problem exacerbated by the effects of climate change.
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