NOAA science expertise and data has supported the U.S. government decision to reduce potent greenhouse gas emissions. On September 21st, the United States Senate successfully approved the Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol with strong bipartisan support. The Kigali Amendment, negotiated under the Obama administration in 2016, is an international agreement to phase-out and replace hydrofluorocarbons, a class of chemicals that act as potent greenhouse gasses.
An annual analysis of air samples collected at remote sites around the globe that is tracking a continued decline in the atmospheric concentration of ozone-depleting substances shows the threat to the ozone layer receding below a significant milestone in 2022, NOAA scientists have announced.
NOAA atmospheric measurements are helping to support a national inventory of emissions from an important family of greenhouse gases.
New analyses of global air measurements show that five years after an unexpected spike in emissions of the banned ozone-depleting chemical chlorofluorocarbon CFC-11, they dropped sharply between 2018 and 2019.
A NOAA study published in the journal Nature demonstrates a profound effect of the Montreal Protocol: as levels of ozone-depleting chemicals controlled by the intenational treaty declined, a poleward shift of summertime circulation patterns in the Southern Hemisphere halted.
Weather conditions were ripe for a big ozone hole this year. But declining levels of ozone-depleting chemicals kept it to near-average size.
Emissions of one of the chemicals most responsible for the Antarctic ozone hole are on the rise, despite an international treaty that required an end to its production in 2010, a new NOAA study shows.