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Ticking Time Bomb: Space Junk Is Eating Away at Earth’s Ozone Layer

June 20, 2024

Ticking Time Bomb: Space Junk Is Eating Away at Earth’s Ozone Layer

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By AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION JUNE 19, 2024

SpaceX Satellite

Thousands of satellites have been deployed into “megaconstellations” to fulfill the growing need for worldwide internet services, with many more planned for launch soon. However, these compact satellites have a brief operational life and are known to emit pollutants that can harm the ozone layer when they disintegrate upon reentry. A recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters has, for the first time, quantified the extent of this pollution. Credit: SpaceX/public domain

When internet-providing satellites — now being launched by the thousands — reach the end of their service life, the remnants from their incineration in Earth’s atmosphere will initiate chemical reactions that deplete stratospheric ozone.

When outdated satellites re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate, they release small aluminum oxide particles that erode the Earth’s ozone layer. A recent study reveals that the presence of these particles has surged eightfold from 2016 to 2022 and is expected to keep rising with the growing number of satellites in low-Earth orbit.

The 1987 Montreal Protocol successfully regulated ozone-damaging CFCs to protect the ozone layer, shrinking the ozone hole over Antarctica with recovery expected in the next fifty years. However, the unexpected increase in aluminum oxides could interrupt the progress made in ozone recovery in the coming decades.

Of the 8,100 objects in low Earth orbit, 6,000 are Starlink satellites launched in the last few years. Demand for global internet coverage is driving a rapid ramp-up of launches of small communication satellite swarms…

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Ozone Layer Recovers, Limiting Global Warming: UN Report

January 10, 2023

Ozone Layer Recovers, Limiting Global Warming: UN Report

A UN-backed scientific panel tasked with assessing the effects of the 1989 Montreal Protocol – an international agreement to phase out Ozone Depleting Substances – has found that the ozone layer continues to strengthen, and as a result, the earth will avoid 0.3 – 0.5°C of global warming by 2100.

Under the 1989 agreement, 99% of ozone-killing chemicals, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that once kept fridges cool, were banned due to a thinning of the ozone – also known as an ozone hole – above Antarctica.

In around four decades, the thinning of the Antarctic hole will be completely reversed, according to the report. The much smaller hole above the Arctic is expected to repair much sooner, DW reports.

By 2066, the Antarctic ozone hole is expected to reduce to its size in 1980, while the Arctic hole will do the same around 2045. Thinning around other areas of the globe should recover around 2040.

Beyond CFCs, ozone-eating chemicals including halons, methyl chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and methyl bromide were once abundant in refrigerators, air conditioners, aerosols, solvents and pesticides. 

These compounds attack ozone by releasing chlorine and bromine atoms that degrade ozone molecules in the stratosphere.

Since the substances were banned, declining concentrations of chlorine and bromine have helped to limit human exposure to harmful UV rays from the sun that can cause skin cancer, cataracts and suppress the immune system. -DW

“Thanks to a global agreement, humanity has averted a major health catastrophe due to ultraviolet radiation pouring through a massive hole in the ozone layer,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last September 16, World Ozone Day.

Impacts on climate change?

Meanwhile, in a fringe benefit that won’t likely silence environmentalists, the panel affirmed the treaty’s positive impact on the climate.

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Humanity Sealed Its Own Fate: 15,000 Scientists Sign A “Doomsday Warning”

November 14, 2017

Humanity Sealed Its Own Fate: 15,000 Scientists Sign A “Doomsday Warning”

earthquake drought natural disaster

A catastrophic warning about humanity’s impending doom was just signed by 15,000 scientists; they all agree that we’ve already sealed our fate.

The signed letter, which was apparently first written in 1992, claims all of the predictions made by scientists have come true except one. Apart from the hole in the ozone layer, which has now stabilized, every one of the major threats identified in 1992 has worsened.

The prophetic warning letter from 1992 argued human impacts on the natural world were likely to lead to “vast human misery” and a planet that was “irretrievably mutilated.” Climate change, deforestation, loss of access to fresh water, animal species extinctions, and uncontrolled human population growth are all threatening mankind’s and the Earth’s future.

It’s been about 25 years since the first doomsday warning letter was signed and scientists are now saying that the Earth is in even more dire shape.  More than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries said humans had “unleashed a mass extinction event,the sixth in roughly 540 million years.”

The message, which was posted online and is an update to the original Warning from the Union of Concerned Scientists and around 1,700 signatories delivered in 1992.  The World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity was written and spearheaded by the late Henry Kendall, former chair of UCS’s board of directors. But scientists still agree that runaway consumption of natural resources by an exploding population remains the biggest danger facing humankind, say the scientists.

In the more recent doomsday warning, scientists warn that human beings should eat less meat, have fewer kids, consume less, and use green energy to save the planet. In the past 25 years, scientists have pointed out the following:

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