Protecting Earth's Ozone Layer Also Helped Slow Climate Change
March 9, 2007 - An international agreement to reduce ozone-
depleting chemicals, based in part on science conducted in the
1980s by NOAA scientists and their colleagues, also has slowed
global warming by years, according to a new study by scientists
at the NOAA Earth System Research Lab and their partners. The
double effect occurred because compounds that destroy the
atmosphere's ozone layer also act as greenhouse gases. The
findings will be available in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences online edition this week. The ozone layer
shields the Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation. To protect
this layer, nations around the world signed the Montreal
Protocol in 1987 to control the production and use of ozone-
depleting substances. "Science conducted by NOAA scientists and
their colleagues provided the scientific basis for the framers
of the Montreal Protocol," said retired Navy Vice Admiral Conrad
Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary