If ozone depletion isn't a side effect of global warming, what is to blame for our evaporating ozone layer??/

Answer 1

Depletion of the ozone layer was caused by chemicals called chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) until the late 70s, after which their use was banned. However, teh CFCs, which cause ozone to break down into oxygen, take a long time (decades) to break down themselves. That's happening, but slowly. And the ozone layer is beginning to recover--though it will probably be 50 years or so before most of the CFCs are gone and the ozone layer recovers more or less completely.

Answer 2

The depletion of the ozone layer is a disproved assumption. Ozone levels in the upper stratosphere cycle dependent on the amount of UV radiation received from the Sun. Ozone will dissociate spontaneously or, as one paper described, upon incidence of another photon of UV. If ozone did NOT dissociate it would eventually precipitate out of the stratosphere, falling until it encountered something with which to react.

Even the lightest CFC, Freon-22 needs to be heated to above 2.96*293 = 869°K, or 596°C (1,104°F) in order to be buoyant in air. I'm not sure, but I believe this is above the decomposition temperature for this chemical, CHClF2
, and the decomposition products will react with something long before they can leave the troposphere.

Answer 3

It seems the answers you have already are correct, but I'm not sure if they have answered your question completely. It is just a matter of terminology that I think is confusing you.

Ozone Depleting Substances are not the same as Green House Gasses. It means we have screwed up our ernvironment in more than one way with more than one form of pollution.

CO2 reflects heat and traps it in our biosphere, causing an increase in the amount of energy in that biosphere. But CO2 is relatively inert in the high atmosphere (not enough energy to initiate a chemical reaction, I suppose), while CFCs react chemically with the charged ozone molecules which are basically oxygen molecules with an ionic charge.

The ozone is a natural radiation shield which allows heat and visible light energy to pass through it, Green House Gasses let the radiation through, but reflect and trap the heat; to the best of my knowledge there is not a direct link between GHGs and Ozone Depletion.

But both make the situation of excess energy in our biosphere worse.

Answer 4

One must look at things in the environment that were not present previously. Fires and burning have been around for some time. Various exotic chemicals such as refrigerants and CF C's have being found to deplete Ozone. Ozone is regenerated by lighting. Lighting is associated with rain. Radio has only been around for about 116 years and each year there is more. We know our micro waves oven work by heating water using a frequency around 2450Hz. I think the problems in the atmosphere are the result of ever increasing radio transmissions. Don't get me wrong I like radio as much as the next person but I think we should look at infra red transmission methods. Radio, Lighting, Ozone. Are they linked?