Without Ozone, the Earth Might Get a Lot Colder - by PaulMattSutter
While the ozone layer of the Earth’s supper atmosphere is critical for blocking ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, most climate models have ignored the role of ozone in studying the Earth’s climate. However, researchers have studied the impact of the ozone layer in a new paperWe have not always had an ozone layer. Before the emergence of life, ozone was essentially non-existent in our atmosphere. And the Earth spent billions of years with only a minimal ozone layer.
To study the impact of the ozone layer, the researchers employed a suite of simulations of the Earth’s climate. They varied the amount of ozone in the upper atmosphere and allowed the Earth’s temperature to reach an equilibrium. They found that the presence of ozone has a warming effect on our surface temperatures, on average increasing the surface temperature of the Earth by about 3.5 Kelvin.
Beyond the changes to the Earth’s temperature, the lack of ozone would have significant impacts on our overall climate. The lack of ozone and the resulting cooling of the stratosphere would also destabilize that layer of the atmosphere preventing the formation of clouds. This would force clouds to only appear at lower and higher altitudes
Also, some jet streams would be strengthened near the equator, while others near the poles would be weakened. This would have drastic consequences for seasonal weather patterns at all latitudes. The Earth’s atmosphere is a rich, complex system, and this result shows that every component plays an important role
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