“I thought … this looks just like Antarctica. How can this be happening over Australia?”
the pieces of that chemical puzzle
In the new study, Solomon and her colleagues compared atmospheric observations of chlorine, ozone and other molecules following the Australian wildfires with simulations of atmospheric chemistry. Satellites had measured the abundance of certain chemicals in the stratosphere in 2020 — not just ozone, but also hydrogen chloride gas and chlorine nitrate, among others. Those levels caught Solomon’s attention.
The atmosphere over Australia is too warm for this process — but the satellite data indicated that something was still removing hydrogen chloride gas from the atmosphere. Solomon and her team realized that the culprit was the organic particles in the smoke. Those particles can absorb hydrogen chloride gas even at warmer temperatures, kicking off that essential first step.
at shrinking the hole in the ozone over Antarctica . The ozone layer has shown signs of recovery ever since, growing back on the order of 1 percent per decade, she says.
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