Bushfires in Australia in the summer of 2020 enlarged the ozone hole thanks to chlorine compounds formed during the event.
Bushfires that swept Australia in late 2019 and early 2020 released chemicals responsible expand the hole in the ozone layer and delay your recovery. The exact process that made this environmental impact possible was described by MIT scientists in an article published yesterday in the journal Nature.
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By producing a cloud of smoke that reached an altitude of 30 km – enough for reach the stratosphere and, consequently, the ozone layer: the fires in southeastern Australia during the summer of 2020 are among the largest on record. In the following months, scientists were surprised by the growth of the hole in the layer that protects the Earth from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, but until now the relationship between the events was not clear.
Susan Solomon, an MIT atmospheric scientist and co-author of the study, explains that the answer lies in the chemicals that were released in the fire. Among them, chlorine compounds – remnants of banned chemicals – that react with ozone have allowed the degradation.
About 80% of the chlorine in the atmosphere is still a residue from the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), substances present in refrigeration systems and sprays from the 1930s to the late 1980s. in the form of hydrochloric acid and nitrate of chlorine — two compounds that, under normal conditions, do not interact with the ozone layer.
Solomon explains that “the smoke of the fires in the high temperatures of Australia it allowed for things that otherwise would not have happened.” However, what the scientists demonstrated in their study was that the atmospheric conditions produced in the fire altered the solubility of the acid, which meant that it could be transformed into CFC.
The study raises another alarm related to forest fires and natural fires, although not all of these events are capable of triggering the transformation of hydrochloric acid into CFCs. In addition to the high temperatures already mentioned by Solomon, high humidity is required. In a context where climatic extremes are becoming more frequent, however, this type of fire could repeat itself at any moment.
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Source: Terra
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