Quote:
Originally Posted by gunnut
I have another question.
Some say CFC, eventhough is much heavier than the atmosphere, will rise up to the upper stratosphere due to wind current or whatever that moves it up.
I heard smog is largely ozone, or a significant amount of smog consists of ozone.
Why doesn't this ozone rise up to the upper atmosphere like how CFC does, and thus replace the alleged losses of ozone up there?
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I think it would rise up, but not in sufficient quantities. The ozone layer is pretty narrow, I believe, and the ozone would not migrate there preferentially. If you created enough ozone at ground level to replenish the ozone layer, we'd all be dead from ozone poisoning.
I don't know the chemistry of CFCs and ozone, but I believe that the CFCs act as catalysts for the degradation of ozone. Of course, the wonderful thing about catalysts is that you don't need much catalyst to do a lot of work, and they last a long, long time. So just a few CFCs getting into the ozone layer will be enough to use up a lot of ozone.
So it's quite possible that more ozone than CFCs are getting into the ozone layer from pollution, but the CFCs destroy far more ozone than comes in.