Australia’s massive wildfires widened ozone hole, study

Wildfires in southeast Australia in 2019-20 spread chemicals that widened the ozone layer, according to a new study. Nature, The study warns that smoke particles from such fires could destroy Earth’s protective layer that shields the planet from the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. Wildfires raged from December 2019 to January 2020, killing 36 people and injuring more than three billion people. It was spread over millions of acres and more than millions of tons of smoke was released into the atmosphere.

Smoke rose up to 30 kilometers from Australia’s most devastating fire ever. study published last week, According to study co-author Ken Stone, an atmospheric chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, it is the region of the stratosphere that contains the ozone layer.

The researchers involved in the study also identified a new chemical reaction by which smog particles worsen ozone depletion.

The effect was so severe that three to five percent of the ozone layer was destroyed over parts of Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and South America.

The study is based on an analysis of satellite data which showed that hydrochloric acid levels were particularly low in regions of the atmosphere away from the South Pole compared to other years.

It is residual chlorine released by chlorofluorocarbons that is harmless to the ozone layer. But when hydrochloric acid dissolves in water droplets, it creates reactive ozone-depleting molecules.

This phenomenon is generally not visible around the poles, as the air is much warmer. But satellite data showed how different organic acids contained in smoke particles changed the solubility of hydrochloric acid after a fire.

Another co-author of the study, Susan Solomon, said hydrochloric acid reacts with smoke particles to produce molecular chlorine, which breaks down into highly reactive ‘ozone-eating’ chlorine atoms.

The study quoted Solomon as saying, “The warmer temperatures have caused wildfire smoke to do things in Australia that might not have happened otherwise.”

“Now there is a kind of race against time. Hopefully, before the frequency of fires increases with climate change, the chlorine-containing compounds will have been destroyed. This is more of a reason to be vigilant about global warming and these chlorine-containing compounds. There’s more reason,” he added.