TEN NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi (16/01/2022): “If the greenhouse effect is a blanket in which we wrap ourselves to keep warm, and then winter kicks the blanket off” said Carl Sagan. Reading about the blue colored ozone gas, I never had the faintest idea that this poisonous gas would be life saving as well. Found in the lower layers of the stratosphere, the ozone layer is acting as a shield protecting the flora and fauna of the earth from the harmful ultraviolet portions of the sun.
I wonder why we have been destroying it. Scientists have recently been witnessing a decrease in the level of ozone from 6 to 8 percent. The more sophisticated we become, the more we are destroying our mother earth. The rapid urbanization has no doubt increased the emissions of chlorofluoro carbons. And above all, the aerosol propellants’, the blowing agents and refrigerant fluids are harmful in heaps. A single CFC molecule alone has the capacity to damage one lakh ozone molecules. There is a new class of chemical compounds impacting the earth’s ozone layer and raising concerns amongst some scientists. But a new NASA research indicates stratospheric ozone could actually be impacted by climate change and the continued release of already banned chemicals. The earth’s ozone hole is showing signs of recovery. Decade after the landmark agreement called the Montreal Protocol signed in late 1980’s when scientists and policy makers from gathered together to save the ozone layer.
The detection of the ozone hole was first and foremost made possible over the Antarctica. It was observed that the ozone hole could be seen during the months of September to October and sooner got replenished in the months of November- December. The phenomena of ozone depletion takes place at lower temperatures, and so it was first detected in the snow covered Polar Regions of Antarctica. The North American people may be affected from skin cancer, and parts of Australia, Argentina, Chile and Newzealand have recently been witnessing a decrease in the ozone density. Compared to European countries, the Indian subcontinent has a higher level of ozone. The southern portion of India is lying in the danger zone as It experiences a large amount of UV light in the summers.
Ozone and the concept of global warming are linked together and walk hand in hand. Quoting the data given by the Environment Minister India, Shri Jayanthi Narayan during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) on May 9.2018, India’s total net gas emissions were equivalent to 1,301.3 million tonnes of carbondioxide. And this data has been increasing every year. Are we doing justice to the green-house gases which are continuously giving their 100 percent in the act of protecting the human race? The Indian Energy Sector has recently become the sole contributor to around two-thirds of the overall greenhouse gases, followed by the agricultural and industrial sector which releases the next 20 percent emission. The annual green house emissions’ from economic sectors of India can be summed up as follows: power plants- 25%; industrial processes:21%; agricultural, forestry and other land use-24%, residential, commercial and other sources- 6%, transportation fuels- 14% and other energy sources-10%.
The Indian forests were an active absorber of 222,567 a million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent. Massive depletion of forests has increase the content of methane, carbon-dioxide and other GHC emissions. It has been estimated that in the future, the temperature increase would be around 3.5-4.3 degrees Celsius ay the end of the century. In 2050, the percentage of forests would be 30%of that existing today and further decrease to 45% at the end of this century. The global warming will affect the quality of crop yields of rice and wheat and the overall yield would decrease to 6 million tonnes with a temperature increase of 1%. Professor K. Krishna Kumar of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology has put forward the fact that higher resolution climate models would be required. A decrease in the rainfall in the southern peninsular region of India would be soon noticed.
As put forth by Justus Notholt, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Bremen in Germany …“Antarctica is the only place in the world where the surface is colder than the stratosphere”. And the surface temperatures are 20 degrees colder than those in the deeper atmospheric layers. Antarctica is no doubt a habitat for many extremes, the world’s highest elevated content, made up ice is technically a desert. But less precipitation accounts for the ‘negative greenhouse effect’, says Sergio Sejas, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
The persistent inversions in temperature ranges are no doubt causing the green house gases to emit much more heat to the space then they would trap. Sejas, also analyzed the fact that water vapor may give a cooling effect in Antarctica. We are aware that carbon dioxide gets thoroughly mixed with the atmosphere, and Sejas further threw light on the fact that some of the heat radiated towards space by Co2 in Antarctica still gets trapped by gas particles at higher altitudes. But this does not hold true for the water-vapor. Sejas further explained the theory that any heat radiated towards space by low altitude is trapped further by gaseous contents in the higher altitudes as if the continents’ heat trapping comforter has been ripped apart in the middle of the night. Thus a warmer globe would increasingly speed up the amount of water vapor content in the stratosphere, and thus exposing Antarctica more vulnerable to green house warming as are the different parts of the globe. Global warming must be seen as an economic and security threat.
To conclude, in the words of Sir John Houghton, “The impacts of global warming are such that I have no hesitation in describing it as a weapon of mass destruction. Like Terrorism, this weapon knows no boundaries, it can strike anywhere in any form. The story of humankind and our relationship to the earth may be seen as a continuous adventure or a tragedy shrouded in mystery. The choice is ours…!!
Story by: Shikha Arya (TEN NEWS, Multimedia Journalist)
