By Syed Tajdar Hussain
The international Ozone day is celebrated every year on September 16, since 1995 under different themes. The theme for this year is “Ozone layer protection: governance and compliance at their best.” The day is commemorated to highlihg importance of the Ozone layer for environment.
The World Ozone Day reflects the Montreal protocol on the substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. The government agencies and Non – Government Organization, NGOs, every year organize various activities and programmes to celebrate the day and to spread awareness among masses regarding the depletion of ozone layer and its protection.
The Ozone layer is under threat due to green house effect as well release of various chemicals into the atmosphere. The Sun emits three types of energy, namely; infrared, ultraviolet light and visible light.
The first two rays of incident light from sun are not harmful and small percentage of visible or blue light that reach to earth surface is 0.3 % out of which 1% trap green plants for their survival on earth and remaining reflect back. The Ultraviolet rays have harmful effect on every living creature on the biosphere. Some of the major causes of Ultraviolet radiations are sunburn, skin cancer, ill effect on eyes etc.
The atmosphere of the earth surface is composed of five types of layers including troposphere, stratosphere, Mesosphere, Thermosphere and the outer most layer is exosphere. Our ozone O3 layer is found in the lower stratosphere play vital role to absorb 93 % of UV rays. The increase in global temperature is due to increase in population, industries, transportation, larger decay of death organic matter and spreading of solid waste produce compounds like Chlorofluorocarbons, which have tendencies to damage the Ozone Molecules(O3), the O3 molecules can be damage by chlorine, hydroxyl and bromine, one chlorine molecule have ability to breakdown 100,000 molecules of Ozone. The main sources of production of these particles in some extend are modern appliances like refrigerator, air conditioners and fire extinguishers, soaps, perfumes etc. The ozone layer due to increase omission of CFCS in the atmosphere started depletion of ozone shield near Antarctica and triggered a hole covered 27 million sq km also know as Antarctic ozone hole. The direct intervention of UV rays are in increase of global temperature in more recent 0.74 % (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), unexpected increase of precipitation, increase in glacier melting, sudden flash flood and land sliding and increase sea water lead to irrecoverable loss of infrastructure and human life.
Some of the important mitigation measures to protect this valuable shield that safeguards our lives and the earth in the long-run are, more and more trees plantation which absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Energy can be saving by minimum use of electricity and utilization of environmental friendly goods. Spreading public and political awareness on this issue can produce drastic impacts on biodiversity of the world