How Ozone Depletion Can Have Adverse Consequences on Animals and Plants

Ozone Depletion
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Ozone Depletion
The ozone layer refers to the earth’s stratosphere, which comprises high levels of ozone that protect animals and plants from the harmful sun’s ultraviolet radiations. Indeed, it is crucial, and without this layer, it would be challenging to live on earth due to increased rates of crops damage and skin cancer. The atmosphere has several layers. The lowest layer is known as the troposphere, which extends from the surface of the earth to about 10 kilometers (6 miles) in altitude. Stratosphere follows, which continues from 10 kilometers to 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the earth’s surface. The ozone layer is found in the stratosphere and extends from 15 kilometers to 30 kilometers. Ozone molecules are formed constantly and damaged. They are essential since they absorb the sun’s radiations and prevent them from reaching the surface. The primary aim of this paper is to show how ozone depletion can have adverse consequences on animals and plants by using Kira Walker’s “Back in the 1990s, the Hole in the Planet’s Ozone Layer was a Pressing Global Crisis – If we Had Ignored it, Today there Would be Several” published in BBC News on March 22, 2022.
Jonathan Shanklin, a British Antarctic Survey meteorologist, was the first person to identify the thinning of the ozone layer in the 1970s using Dobson spectrophotometers, which are instruments used to measure the atmospheric ozone changes (Walker, 2022). Figure 1 below shows the ozone layer in the stratosphere.
Figure 1
Ozone Layer in the Stratosphere.


Source: /ozone-layer-protection/basic-ozone-layer-science#:~:text=II.-,Ozone%20Depletion,than%20it%20is%20naturally%20created.
As shown in Figure 1, the troposphere is the atmospheric layer where numerous human activities take place. Shanklin’s observations in 1984 were clear that the ozone layer above Antarctica’s Halley Bay had lost a third of its thickness. His discovery was called the ozone hole. Shanklin together with his colleagues Brian Gardiner and Joe Farman published their findings, which triggered more scientific studies and speculations about ozone depletion (Walker, 2022). These researchers linked ozone layer damage with human-made chemical compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are used in cooling devices and aerosols. This news spread worldwide, and it was projected that the ozone layer destruction would have adverse impacts on humans, animals, plants, and the ecosystem. That is the point where the government and other relevant stakeholders came together to perform scientific investigations on how to prevent ozone depletion and safeguard life.
In particular, ozone layer depletion refers to the gradual decline of the earth’s ozone layer that is caused by chemical compounds from human activities. Figure 2 depicts how ozone depletion causes ultraviolet radiation to penetrate the surface of the earth.
Figure 2
Ozone Depletion.


Source: https://byjus.com/biology/ozone-layer-depletion/.
Figure 2 depicts how ultraviolet radiations from the sun are blocked by the o...