Greenhouse emissions shrinking stratosphere: Ozone layer at risk as study predicts further decline

Amid growing calls to check the rapid increase in greenhouse emissions, a new paper has raised concerns over the shrinking of the stratosphere due to changing climatic factors. The study is the first to reveal that the stratosphere has been shrinking not just in the 2000s but since the 1980s, a trend that could prove detrimental if it continues.

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The study was published in the Environmental Research Letters journal and concluded that “if the trends continue the mean climatological thickness of the stratosphere will decrease by 1.3 km by 2080.” Scientists concluded that the continuous shrinking of this atmospheric layer is the most visible example of climate change on Earth.

“The troposphere has expanded and the rise of the tropopause, the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere, has been suggested as one of the most robust fingerprints of anthropogenic climate change,” researchers said.

The paper concluded that the decline in the stratosphere is likely to continue through the 21st Century. The continuous reduction could prove detrimental for human existence as the stratosphere houses the ozone layer that absorbs UV rays from the sun. “It may affect satellite trajectories, orbital lifetimes, and retrieval, the propagation of radio waves, and eventually the overall performance of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and other space-based navigational systems,” the researchers said.

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While countries are trying to curb the emission by going carbon neutral and adopting the Paris agreement, a lot remains to be done to lower the global mean temperatures by at least 1.5-2 degrees. Meanwhile, human activity continues to affect the natural climate posing a risk to survival.

What is Stratosphere?

The stratosphere is the second layer of Earth’s atmosphere as one goes up with the bottom at around 10 km above the ground at middle latitudes. The top of the stratosphere is at an altitude of 50 km and acts as a blanket to protect the planet from deadly ultraviolet rays of the sun. The lower boundary of the stratosphere is called the tropopause; the upper boundary is called the stratopause.

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The stratosphere is dry with little water vapor as a of which result cloud cover is minimal as almost all clouds are present in the lower, more humid troposphere. Due to the lack of currents in this layer, particles tend to stay for a longer duration.