Ozone Depletion

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 12th grade May 2001

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Human activities have effect many things on the world. Urban growths, industries, nuclear power, cutting down the forest and many more have made the world in danger. Those events have made many animals become extinct and homeless. Human would also be in danger in the future. The most important of all that human activities have caused is the ozone hole. BAS scientists first discovered the ozone hole over Antarctic in May 1985. During the past few years the ozone has been depleting; the hole in the ozone could be worse and cause more harm to the living things on earth, but the scientists have found many new things in their research and the government and UN have planned many solutions to save the ozone from depleting.

First of all, ozone is a harmful gas at ground level. Ozone is a molecule made out of three atoms of oxygen. Ozone is a polar molecule with a resonance structure.

Ozone has a ¡§pale blue color and carries odor and it is very unstable, it dissociates into common oxygen and a free oxygen atom (O) called the atomic oxygen¡¨ (Voynick 1). Ozone is poisonous and it is threatening to humans when present in too high quantities in the surface of the earth. Since the ozone is a toxic, irritating gas, it existence on the Earth¡¦s surface is much lower than it is present in the atmosphere and stratosphere. The ozone molecules disperse through ¡§the stratosphere between 6.3 to 31 miles above earth and in the troposphere is 6.2 miles and above the earth¡¨ (Dietrich 19). In large cities where there is a lot of pollution, ozone may exist in higher concentration. Thus, this can cause severe health problems. The ozone molecules in the ground cause eyesores and makes hard for humans to breathe...