Ozone Hole Leads to Global Warming, but in a Different Way

The growing hole in the ozone layer has long thought to be one of the primary causes of global warming. The ozone layer helps prevent the Earth from being struck from ultraviolet radiation, so a hole lets the radiation come through and the heat's surface. It makes sense, right? Well, the empirical evidence suggests that this correlation is not accurate. Now, however, a computer model created by several scientists suggests that the ozone hole might actually contribute to global warming, but in a completely unique way than expected.

The computer model shows that the ozone hole shifts the wind patterns and thus moves the clouds further towards the South Pole. Thus, the clouds will not reflect as much sunlight and thus increase the amount of ultraviolet radiation on the Earth. The cause of this ozone hole was discovered to be chlorofluorocarbons found in aerosols and cooling systems in the 1980s.

The study was conducted by Kevin Grise at Columbia University and collaborators including Lorenzo Polvani of Columbia University, George Tselioudis of NASA, Yutian Wu of New York City and Mark Zilenka of Lawrence Laboratory. It really is a revolutionary study because it completely changes conventional thinking regarding the ozone hole. A Yale University poll showed that 61 percent of people believed that the ozone layer contributes to global warming, but more people may buy this theory when looking at this new study.