Ozone

June 03, 2008
Image of Ozone 3D Image of Ozone

Ozone (O3) plays an extremely important role in the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) and lower atmosphere (troposphere). In the stratosphere (10鈥�50 km above sea level), UV radiation breaks O2聽molecules into atomic oxygen (O); O2聽and O then recombine to form O3. This first step absorbs almost all UV-C radiation (200鈥�280 nm) from the sun before it passes below ~40 km above sea level; this is the rate-limiting step in O3听蹿辞谤尘补迟颈辞苍.

O3聽is photolyzed by UV-B radiation (280鈥�320 nm) back to O and O2. This process absorbs a large amount of UV-B radiation, but some still reaches Earth鈥檚 surface where it is the primary cause of sunburn. With depleted amounts of O3聽in the atmosphere, more UV-B radiation reaches sea level.

A significant amount of Earth鈥檚 O3聽(~10%) exists in the troposphere (~0鈥�10 km). Here it is not produced by the photolysis of O2聽because the required UV-C radiation has been absorbed in the stratosphere. Instead, O3聽is produced primarily during the oxidation of CH4聽and NO. Anthropogenic generation of these compounds has greatly increased over the past century and led to an increase in tropospheric O3, which is linked to health problems such as asthma.

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