Wildfire Smoke Eroded Ozone Layer By 10 Percent In 2020: Study:
The havoc wreaked by wildfires isn't just on the ground. Researchers at MIT have found that wildfire smoke particles actively erode Earth's protective ozone layer, thus widening the gap we've been spending the last decade trying to close.
When something burns and produces smoke, those smoke particles—otherwise called wildfire aerosol—can drift into the stratosphere, where they hang out for a year or more. According to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, chemists and atmospheric scientists have found that suspended wildfire aerosol sparks chemical reactions that ultimately degrade the ozone layer, or the thin atmospheric layer responsible for shielding Earth from the Sun.
The newly-discovered chemical reaction increases hydrochloric acid's solubility. While hydrochloric acid is already present in the atmosphere, MIT found that larger hydrochloric acid quantities activate chlorine in the air and increase ozone loss rates when warmer temperatures strike. This spells danger for the storied hole in the ozone layer, which environmental activists, scientists, and policymakers have been fighting to shrink for several years.
[...] Thankfully, recent attempts to mitigate damage to the ozone layer have been quite successful. International treaties like the Montreal Protocol have helped phase out the use of ozone-depleting pollutants. The world's gradual adoption of electric vehicles might have also helped. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration even found that the Antarctic ozone hole was slightly smaller in 2022 than in 2021 and far smaller than in 2006 when its size peaked. That said, it's difficult to know right now whether these efforts are enough to compensate for the ozone damage caused by wildfire smoke.
Journal Reference:
Solomon, S., Stone, K., Yu, P. et al. Chlorine activation and enhanced ozone depletion induced by wildfire aerosol. Nature 615, 259–264 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05683-0
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 14 2023, @02:54PM (3 children)
In other words, they've significantly underestimated the natural sinks for stratospheric ozone and thus implicitly, the natural sources of said ozone. This wouldn't be the first time an ongoing scientific error was couched as a new threat.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Wednesday March 15 2023, @03:54AM (2 children)
Also, wildfire seasons in recent decades have been only 5-10% of the annual burn acreage of historical wildfires... yet somehow those much larger fire seasons didn't 100% deplete the ozone layer.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 15 2023, @04:05AM (1 child)
Or maybe they did, and we just didn't notice it for some reason.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday March 15 2023, @04:18AM
If it mattered, I think we'd have noticed the several decades where vastly larger wildfires would do proportionally more damage.... and the tail end in living memory.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday March 14 2023, @07:21PM (1 child)
A decade? More like three or four. Freon and many other chemicals have been banned for decades because they eat ozone.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 15 2023, @04:09AM