NASA JPL 2010-141 - 28 Apr 2010
A new NASA study of Earth's polar ozone layer reinforces scientists' understanding of how human-produced chlorine chemicals involved in the destruction of ozone interact with each other.
A team of scientists led by Michelle Santee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., examined how nighttime temperatures affect chlorine monoxide, a key chemical involved in ozone destruction. Combining NASA satellite measurements with a state-of-the-art chemical model, they found this relationship to be more consistent with recent laboratory work than with some older laboratory and field observational data. This verification is important, because scientists have not been able to conduct appropriate laboratory experiments relevant to understanding how polar chlorine monoxide behaves at night at the lowest temperatures of the stratosphere, Earth's second lowest atmospheric layer.
Santee and her team published their findings this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The data came from the Microwave Limb Sounder instrument on NASA's Aura satellite.
"Our comprehensive study uses multiple years of Arctic and Antarctic satellite observations to quantify the nighttime balance of ozone-destroying chlorine chemical compounds," said Santee. "By gaining a better knowledge of this balance, scientists will be able to make more accurate predictions of polar ozone loss, especially in twilight and in the Arctic, where conditions are often only marginally favorable for ozone destruction."