Volcanic gases could deplete ozone layer 12 June 2012 AGU
Release No. 12-30 For Immediate Release SELFOSS, ICELAND—Giant
volcanic eruptions in Nicaragua over the past 70,000 years could
have injected enough gases into the atmosphere to temporarily
thin the ozone layer, according to new research. And, if it
happened today, a similar explosive eruption could do the same,
releasing more than twice the amount of ozone-depleting halogen
gases currently in stratosphere due to manmade emissions.
Bromine and chlorine are gases that “love to react — especially
with ozone,” said Kirstin Krüger, a meteorologist with GEOMAR in
Kiel, Germany. “If they reach the upper levels of the
atmosphere, they have a high potential of depleting the ozone
layer.” New research by Krüger and her colleagues, which she
presented today at a scientific conference in Selfoss, Iceland,
combined a mixture of field work, geochemistry and existing
atmospheric models to look at the previous Nicaraguan eruptions.
And the scientists found that the e