Stratospheric Ozone Depletion and Greenhouse Gases since the International Geophysical Year: F. Sherwood Rowland and the Evolution of Earth Science

Abstract

In preparation for the International Geophysical Year (IGY), the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) of the Royal Society set up a research station near Halley Bay (named in honor of noted astronomer Edmond Halley). During the IGY, the Halley Bay station played a critical role in discovering the polar vortex above the Antarctic and, nearly 30 years later, provided important evidence for massive loss of stratospheric ozone within the vortex that could be attributed to the release of anthropogenic chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) into the atmosphere. These findings provided the experimental confirmation for the theoretical predictions made in the mid-1970s by F. Sherwood Rowland and his colleague, Mario Molina. Discovery of this “ozone hole” in 1985, made possible by the Dobson spectrometers set up during the IGY, led to the swift enactment of the important intergovernmental treaty brokered by the United Nations, known as the Montreal Protocol in 1987. The Montreal Protocol initially called for a 50 percent reduction in CFC production by the end of the twentieth century, but subsequent meetings set up an accelerated schedule for major industrialized nations to phase out these products completely by 1996.KeywordsPolar VortexMontreal ProtocolOzone HoleTotal Ozone Mapping SpectrometerNobel LectureThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.