“We still managed to fill a hole in the sky.” It is with this unequivocal image that Inger Andersen, the president of the United Nations Environment Program, likes to summarize the results of this organization, which was established in 1972 and which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
This famous hole, which isn’t actually one, is a hole in the stratospheric ozone layer, which serves as our planet’s shield from the sun’s rays. What is ozone? “Ozone is a vital component of our atmosphere.” explains Sophie Godin-Beckmann, CNRS Research Director and President of the International Ozone Commission since 2016.This element is the only one that absorbs ultraviolet radiation in the UVB range. It is most abundant in the stratosphere, between 10 and 50 kilometers high. It is precisely because of this ozone layer that life was able to develop on the continents.
Where one can be optimistic is that we managed to get it right
Didier Hauglustein, CNRS Research Director of the Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory (LSCE)
A study of the polar vortex
Those who knew the last decades of the last century remember this…
Source: Le Figaro
