Study of the effectiveness of the Cl/sub x/ catalytic ozone loss mechanisms

Conference · Mon Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1980

OSTI ID:6259761

Wuebbles, D J; Chang, J S

The importance of catalytic mechanisms involving chlorine species for destroying stratospheric ozone is now well recognized. A number of chlorinated halocarbons have been suggested as anthropogenic sources of stratospheric chlorine. In particular the potential impacts on stratospheric ozone of surface release of CF/sub 2/CL/sub 2/, CFCl/sub 3/ and CH/sub 3/CCl/sub 3/ have been studied extensively previously. With the current understanding of atmospheric photochemical processes, there are now at least three other ozone destroying catalytic cycles involving chlorine species in addition to the well known Cl-C10 catalytic cycle that are of varying importance in the stratosphere. Because of the differences in the vertical distributions of the concentration of the relevant chemical species the most effective altitudes for each cycle are different. Since an individual halocarbon releases chlorine atoms over a range of different altitudes in the stratosphere, its impact on stratospheric ozone must be due to the combined effect of each of these cycles. In this study, a comparison is made of the relative roles of these catalytic cycles for destroying stratospheric ozone when emissions for various halocarbons are considered. It is concluded that there are at least four catalytic cycles for odd oxygen destruction involving chlorine species. The relative efficiency of these cycles vary significantly with altitude. Changes in the ozone vertical distribution from various halocarbon perturbations were found to be different in shape. This was due to the differences in the altitude range of inorganic chlorine release resulting from halocarbon destruction and to the differences in relative catalytic cycle efficiencies.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 6259761
• Report Number(s): UCRL-84071; CONF-800869-3
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

500100* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Basic Studies-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY
CATALYSIS
CATALYTIC EFFECTS
CHEMICAL REACTION KINETICS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CHEMISTRY
CHLORINE
CHLORINE COMPOUNDS
DISTRIBUTION
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ELEMENTS
HALOGEN COMPOUNDS
HALOGENS
KINETICS
NONMETALS
ORGANIC CHLORINE COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC FLUORINE COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC HALOGEN COMPOUNDS
OXYGEN
OZONE
PHOTOCHEMICAL REACTIONS
POLLUTION SOURCES
REACTION KINETICS
STRATOSPHERE