U.S., Soviets to study Antarctic ozone.U.S., Soviets to study Antarctic ozone In an agreement announced last week,U.S. and Soviet scientists plant to collaborate in an investigation of the seasonal thinning of Antarctic ozone. The agreement calls for the UnitedStates to provide 50 packages of ozone-monitoring equipment and ballons, which the Soviets will fly above their Molodezhnaya station on the Indian Ocean Indian Ocean, third largest ocean, c.28,350,000 sq mi (73,427,000 sq km), extending from S Asia to Antarctica and from E Africa to SE Australia; it is c.4,000 mi (6,400 km) wide at the equator. It constitutes about 20% of the world's total ocean area. side of Antarctica. The Soviets will exchange data from these flights with the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. , which will, in turn, supply the Soviets with daily ozone profiles measured by Satellites. "We will have much more information -- justthe basic observations of the distribution of ozone over Antarctica as a function of space and time -- than we've ever had before," says James Peterson James Peterson is an American writer and teacher of the culinary arts. He holds a degree in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. His apprenticeship in the culinary arts began with classes at Paris' Cordon Bleu and with work at Le Vivarois. of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Air Resources Lab in Boulder, Colo., who was the senior U.S. official involved in the negotiations. Currently, one British and two Americanstations in Antarctica take balloon soundings of the ozone levels. By combining the verticle profiles from balloons with spatial information from satellites, scientists can obtain a detailed, three-dimensional picture of the ozone distribution, says Peterson. Scientists are concerned about thestratospheric ozone depletions, which appear over Antarctica in September (SN: 5/23/87, p.326) and over the North Pole North Pole, northern end of the earth's axis, lat. 90°N. It is distinguished from the north magnetic pole. U.S. explorer Robert E. Peary is traditionally credited as being the first to reach (1909) the North Pole. In 1926, Richard E. in February (SN: 10/4/86, p.215), because the ozone layer is needed to filter out harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Some fear that these holes signal a worldwide drop in ozone levels, possibly caused by chlorofluorocarbons chlorofluorocarbons (klōr'əfl  r`əkär'bənz, klôr'–) (CFCs), organic compounds that contain carbon, chlorine, and fluorine atoms. , a class of chemicals used chiefly in refrigerants Chemical refrigerants are assigned an R number(sometimes the label replaces it with the word Freon) which is determined systematically according to molecular structure. The following is a list of refrigerants with their R numbers, IUPAC chemical name, molecular formula, and CAS number. and aerosols. The two superpowers also discussedplans for a scientific meeting next year in the Soviet Union concerning computer modeling of ozone and other trace gases. |
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