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With more heat and sunlight in the summer months, more ozone is formed which is why regions often experience higher levels of pollution in the summer months. [11] Although the same molecule, ground-level ozone can be harmful to human health, unlike stratospheric ozone that protects the earth from excess UV radiation. [10]
Such a highly reactive oxidizer would normally be dangerous to life but ozone's concentration at sea level is usually not high enough to be toxic. The relatively low concentration of ozone in the habitable zone of earth is in part due to ozone being highly reactive with organic molecules. Ozone that has not already reacted with other ...
For the last few decades, scientists studied the effects of acute and chronic ozone exposure on human health. Hundreds of studies suggest that ozone is harmful to people at levels currently found in urban areas. [78] [79] Ozone has been shown to affect the respiratory, cardiovascular and central nervous system. Early death and problems in ...
Earth’s protective ozone layer is slowly but noticeably healing at a pace that would fully mend the hole over Antarctica in about 43 years, a new United Nations report says. A once-every-four ...
Following the ozone depletion in 1997 and 2011, a 90% drop in ozone was measured by weather balloons over the Arctic in March 2020, as they normally recorded 3.5 parts per million of ozone, compared to only around 0.3 parts per million lastly, due to the coldest temperatures ever recorded since 1979, and a strong polar vortex which allowed ...
Ozone is a greenhouse gas, [32] and changes in its atmospheric abundance due to human activity have radiative forcing effects. Ozone absorbs both ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun and infrared radiation emitted from Earth's surface. [4]
The ozone layer prevents harmful wavelengths of ultraviolet (UVB) light from passing through the Earth's atmosphere. These wavelengths cause skin cancer , sunburn , permanent blindness, and cataracts , [ 178 ] which were projected to increase dramatically as a result of thinning ozone, as well as harming plants and animals.
[7] [6] It is the fourth-largest risk factor overall for human health [8] as 99% of people are exposed to harmful levels of air pollution. [9] Outdoor particulate pollution ( PM2.5 ) is the largest cause of death (4.7 million), followed by indoor air pollution (3.1 million) and ozone (0.5 million).