An obituary in the AGE March 16th 2012 for a pioneer of the effects of CFC's( chlorofluorocarbons) on OZONE on the atmosphere..EXTRACTS below
SHERWOOD
ROWLAND..scientist ..Born 1927 died 10/3/ 2012
shared the 1995 Nobel prize for chemistry : research suggesting that CFC's once commonly used in aerosol sprays, solvents, refrigerants and packaging materials were eating a hole in the ozone layer
ROWLAND and Mario Molina at the university of California at Irvine discovered that while CFC's are stable at low altitudes, once they reached the middle of the stratosphere, 32 to 48 km's above the earths surface the molecules would be broken down by sunlight, releasing highly reactive chlorine atoms.
The result they predicted would be a rapid chain reaction in which single chlorine atoms would combine with ozone to form chlorine Oxide and then break apart to combine with Ozone once again
each atom destroying as many as 100,000 ozone molecules.
Rowland was so horrified by the implications that he told his wife it looked like the end of the world
In 1974 ( nature periodical) Rowland and Molina calculated that the emissions of CFC's could result in 7 to 13 percent loss in global ozone. by the middle of the 21st century. Rowland warned of the increased risks of skin cancer and catastrophic climate change. He called for CFC's to be banned
The US banned CFC's in 1976
The 28 billion$ Aerosols industries touted his research as rubbish and interest waned
However later
In 1985 , British scientist James farmer and colleagues observed a massive springtime loss of ozone over Antarctica and the temperate zones of the northern hemisphere.
Both ozone deletions were found to be chiefly caused by industrial CFC's.
Two years later the UN Montreal protocol was signed of which CFC's are now banned worldwide
He served as president of the American association for the advancement of science and became a respected voice on the dangers of global warming and climate change