{"id":7744,"date":"2020-05-02T12:57:30","date_gmt":"2020-05-02T07:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=7744"},"modified":"2020-05-02T12:57:30","modified_gmt":"2020-05-02T07:27:30","slug":"covid-19-ozone-layer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/covid-19-ozone-layer\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 &#038; Ozone layer"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"hero-section\" data-type=\"type-1\" data-alignment=\"left\">\n<header class=\"entry-header\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Relevance: Prelims: Environment<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.nature.com\/lw800\/magazine-assets\/d41586-020-00904-w\/d41586-020-00904-w_17838084.png\" alt=\"Rare ozone hole opens over Arctic \u2014 and it's big\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>\u2022 The European Union\u2019s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) announced that a hole in the Arctic ozone layer, believed to be the biggest reported, has closed.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 <strong>The ozone hole\u2019s closing was because of a phenomenon called the polar vortex, and not because of reduced pollution levels due to Covid-19 lockdowns around the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The hole in the North Pole\u2019s ozone layer, which was first detected in February, had since reached a maximum extension of around 1 million sq km, according to scientists at the German Aerospace Center.<\/p>\n<p><b>Importance of the ozone layer:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Ozone (chemically, a molecule of three oxygen atoms) is found mainly in the upper atmosphere, an area called the stratosphere, between 10 and 50 km from the earth\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Though it is talked of as a layer, ozone is present in the atmosphere in rather low concentrations.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Even at places where this layer is thickest, there are not more than a few molecules of ozone for every million air molecules.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 But they perform a very important function. By absorbing the harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun, the ozone molecules eliminate a big threat to life forms on earth.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 UV rays can cause skin cancer and other diseases and deformities in plants and animals.<\/p>\n<p><b>Ozone holes:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The \u2018ozone hole\u2019 is not really a hole \u2014 it refers to a region in the stratosphere where the concentration of ozone becomes extremely low in certain months.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 The \u2018ozone holes\u2019 most commonly talked about are the depletion over Antarctica, forming each year in the months of September, October and November, due to a set of special meteorological and chemical conditions that arise at the South Pole, and can reach sizes of around 20 to 25 million sq km.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>For more such notes, Articles, News &amp; Views Join our Telegram Channel.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"telegram Link\" href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/triumphias\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>https:\/\/t.me\/triumphias<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Click the link below to see the details about the UPSC \u2013Civils courses offered by Triumph IAS.<\/strong> <\/span><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" title=\"Courses available\" href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/pages-all-courses.php\">https:\/\/triumphias.com\/pages-all-courses.php<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Prelims: Environment Why in news? \u2022 The European Union\u2019s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) announced that a hole in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-7744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7745,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7744\/revisions\/7745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}