Why is the ozone hole over Antarctica?

DaveRaver · #1 05-09-2001, 08:07 PM

Since Antarctica is the least populated continent, why is the biggest hole in the ozone located over there? You would think it would be located smack over North America, the most polluting continent. What's up with that?

DrFidelius · #2 05-09-2001, 08:47 PM

um, air currents? The jet stream? Chlorflourocarbons are heavy and settled to the bottom of the globe?

Actually, I have no idea. I am personally not convinced that the hole is the result of human activity or if it is some type of cyclic phenomena that we are just seeing now because we have just recently learned how to look. But that's probably just because I tend to vote Republican...

nevermore · #3 05-09-2001, 09:06 PM

it has something to do with the subzero temperatures...let's see if I can get this right.
This ain't gonna be the most technical explanation in the world, but it's the best an aspiring scientist can do.

Cl (chlorine) radicals are what eats up ozone in the first place. (Actually they scavenge an oxygen atom from the three-oxygen-atom molecule that is ozone, leaving two oxygen atoms which is just plain oxygen.) The clouds over Antarctica have these little ice crystals in them because it's so freakin' cold there, and Cl radicals that happen to be floating by stick to these crystals because, well, they're sticky. Well, for half the year or something, it's dark in Antarctica and the Cl radicals are just sitting there, not eating up any ozone at all, which is good. But, in the Antarctic spring (which is in like October or November) out comes Mr. Sun and melts all the ice crystals in the clouds, releasing all these chlorine radicals at once, which eats up a huge chunk of the ozone layer right there above Antarctica. And there ya have it.