Ozone Depletion Is Cooling Upper Atmosphere, Scientists Report
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From Times staff and wire reports
Humans are responsible not only for depletion of the ozone layer, a new study concludes, but also for a cooling trend that scientists have observed in the upper atmosphere during the last few decades.
Since 1979, satellites have seen temperatures drop about one degree in an atmospheric layer roughly 10 miles above Earth’s surface, even as lower regions of the atmosphere have warmed.
Based on computer simulations, three researchers reporting in the Aug. 15 Nature now argue that the ozone depletion is the cause of the lower stratosphere cooling trend.