SciTech Daily December 31, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – University of Colorado, NCAR, industry, University of Wisconsin, NESDIS, Spain, Argentina) has shown that dust is a source of gas-phase iodine, indicated by aircraft observations of iodine monoxide (IO) radicals inside lofted dust layers from the Atacama and Sechura Deserts that are up to a factor of 10 enhanced over background. Gas-phase iodine photochemistry, commensurate with observed IO, is needed to explain the low O3 inside these dust layers (below 15 ppbv; up to 75% depleted). The added dust iodine can explain decreases in O3 of 8% regionally […]
Tag Archives: Ozone depletion
Lightning strikes may trigger short-term thinning in the ozone layer
Phys.org October 11, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – University of Colorado, Finland) used detailed computer simulations to follow what happened in the atmosphere after Hurricane Patricia that struck Texas and Mexico in 2015 and had more than 33,000 lightning strikes over the span of just two-and-a-half hours, the May 1917 storm in the Caribbean, and the 2013 storm over Nebraska. As the storms progressed, the electron energy raining down to Earth began to react with gasses high in Earth’s atmosphere, concentrations of certain molecules in the air, including hydrogen oxides and nitrogen oxides, shot up almost at […]