2.1 Solving the mystery of disappearing ozone
| CHAPTER 2 | SCIENCE LITERACY AND THE PROCESS OF SCIENCE |
SCIENCE AND THE SKY
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CORE MESSAGE
Depletion of the stratospheric ozone caused by synthetic chemicals allows more dangerous solar radiation to reach Earth’s surface, threatening the health and well-being of many plants and animals, including humans. Researchers employed the scientific process to collect physical evidence, analyze it, and report their findings to the scientific community. This helped us understand what was causing the depletion, and guided wise policy decisions at the national and international level to address this tragedy of the commons.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
After reading this chapter you should be able to answer the following questions:
What kinds of questions are under the purview of science and why is science limited in this way? Why do we say science is a “process” and that conclusions are always open to further study?-
How are scientific hypotheses generated and tested? What are the two main types of scientific studies and why do we need both types?
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Why is ozone in the stratosphere beneficial to life on Earth and how is it being depleted? What is the evidence that ozone depletion might be harmful to the health of humans or other organisms?
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How did scientists use the process of science to help us understand what was happening with the ozone layer and what unknowns still exist?
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How did scientists, policy-makers, and world leaders take the science about ozone depletion and turn it into policy?
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There’s a point of no return halfway into the 9-hour flight from New Zealand to the Antarctic. Once that 4.5-hour mark passes, if something goes wrong with the plane, there’s nowhere to stop in the Southern Ocean for repairs.
Susan Solomon is very familiar with that trip’s all-important midway point. During her very first flight to the southernmost continent, the pilot told the passengers that their plane was not working properly: the front ski at the nose of their C-130 was frozen and couldn’t be lowered into position, so landing on the packed snow at the Antarctic research station would be impossible. They had to turn around.
It was August, 1986—late winter in the Antarctic—and the atmospheric chemist was on her way to the southern continent to investigate a mystery: why was the stratospheric ozone above the South Pole disappearing? Suddenly, the remoteness of where she was going hit home.
“I remember, as we were flying back to New Zealand, thinking, ‘Wow, I really am going to the Antarctic,’” Solomon says.
The next night, the atmospheric scientist and her team from various research institutions, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), managed to make it to Antarctica, landing at McMurdo Station. On her very first excursion to the Antarctic, Solomon and her colleagues collected the initial data that would eventually grab the world’s attention and settle a long-standing, hard-fought scientific debate that was taking place on an international stage.
WHERE IS MCMURDO STATION?
