Scienceblogtwo

90% of people's lives are often spent indoors, either at work, home, or when traveling. Residents of these enclosed spaces are exposed to a wide range of chemicals from numerous sources, including indoor infiltration of outdoor pollutants, gaseous emissions from furnishings and building materials, and byproducts of our own activities like cooking and cleaning. Additionally, through our breath and skin, we are powerful mobile emission sources of chemicals that enter indoor air. However, how do the chemicals return? This occurs to some extent naturally on its own, when it rains, and through chemical oxidation in the atmosphere outside. In great part, hydroxyl (OH) radicals are in charge of this chemical cleanup. These highly reactive chemicals, also known as the detergents of the atmosphere, are largely created when sunlight reacts with ozone and water vapor to make these very reactive molecules. Direct sunlight and rain have obviously much less of an impact on the air within. Since ...

Although the ozone hole over Antarctica is well known, few people are aware that the protective ozone in the stratosphere periodically breaks down over the Arctic, depleting the ozone layer there. Prior to that, it occurred in the spring of 2011 and most recently in the months of spring 2020. Climate scientists have recorded weather abnormalities every time the ozone layer has been breached, which has affected the whole northern hemisphere. Those springtimes were extremely warm and dry in Siberia, central and northern Europe, Russia, and especially in the former Soviet Union. However, there were other places, like the arctic regions, where it was damp. These meteorological irregularities were especially noticeable in 2020. Additionally, that spring in Switzerland was abnormally warm and dry. Climate research is divided on the issue of whether the loss of stratospheric ozone causes the observed weather anomalies. Another factor is the stratospheric polar vortex, which develops in the wi...