America's Success Story In Saving Ozone Layer Has Added Climate Benefits, Study Says By Pam Wright 15 hours agoweather.com
Repairing Ozone Layer Had Unexpected Benefit
Repairing the ozone layer had a happy, unexpected benefit.
The Montreal Protocol banned CFCs in 1987, which were linked with the depletion of the ozone layer.
A new study found that the protocol has also helped reduce greenhouse gases.
Measures initiated some 30 years ago to reduce a hole in the ozone layer has gone remarkably well, a new study says, with an added timely benefit.
Research published in Geophysical Research Letters this month examined the Montreal Protocol signed in 1987 and found that not only was the effort successful in battling the threat to the ozone layer, it also helped to reduce greenhouse gases.
The battle to reduce the hole in the ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from the sun’s harmful radiation, dates back to 1973 when two University of California scientists began studying the effects of chlorofluorocarbons on the environment, according to the study CFCs, also known by the commercial name freon, were a common ingredient in refrigeration systems and aerosol sprays. The scientists, F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina, discovered that the colorless gas in the atmosphere was combining with solar radiation to deplete the protective ozone layer.
For years, the duo tried to bring attention to the impending calamity but was met with pushback from the industries producing freon-friendly products. The industries went so far as to claim that Rowland was a Russian spy out to ruin capitalism.
The world changed its tune by 1985 when irrefutable evidence confirmed the depletion of the ozone layer, which was creating a giant hole over the South Pole. With former President Ronald Reagan leading the charge, a ban on CFC use was implemented in 1987.
"The U.S. was historically the largest producer of CFCs, accounting for 50 to 70 percent of world production in the 1960s–1970s," the study notes. Production of CFC fell "to near zero in 1996," and the results have been striking. No longer is the ozone being gobbled up, the hole looming over Antarctica has shrunk by 10 percent.
Using data from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's atmospheric monitoring network, the researchers found that in addition to halting the depletion of ozone layer, the elimination of CFCs also helped reduce CO2 emissions by 170 million tons per year between 2008 to 2014.
"Implementation of the Montreal Protocol in the U.S. has been achieved largely through the U.S. Clean Air Act," the report notes. "This led to near-complete phase-out of the production and consumption of CFCs for dispersive uses beginning in 1996 and a 95 percent decline of HCFC production since peak production in 1998. In contrast, the consumption of HFCs has grown rapidly in the U.S. over the past two decades."
While HFCs have no effect on the ozone layer, they do trap heat with twenty times the efficiency of CFCs, according to the report.
While there has been much healing of the ozone layer, some scientists say full healing is a slow process and will not occur until sometime in the 22nd century, Yale Environment 360 reports.
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