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In addition to causing a hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica, ozone-depleting substances are responsible for half of all Arctic warming between 1955 and 2005, according to a paper published yesterday (January 20) in Nature Climate Change. The findings may help explain why the Arctic is warming at a much faster rate than the rest of the planet, an observation that has long baffled scientists.
Ozone-depleting substances (ODS) are manmade chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that first widely emerged in the 1920s for use in refrigerants, aerosol propellants, and solvents. In the early 1980s, scientists became aware that these substances were responsible for the damage to the ozone layer. By 1989, under the Montreal Protocol, the products had been globally banned from use.
Because the Arctic is losing ice at a worrying pace, the researchers sought to find why the area is warming so much ...
