Single oxygen atoms can re-join to make O 2 , or they can join with O 2 molecules to make ozone O 3. Ozone is destroyed when it reacts with molecules containing nitrogen, hydrogen, chlorine, or bromine.
Some of the molecules that destroy ozone occur naturally, but people have created others. The total mass of ozone in the atmosphere is about 3 billion metric tons. That may seem like a lot, but it is only 0. The peak concentration of ozone occurs at an altitude of roughly 32 kilometers 20 miles above the surface of the Earth.
At that altitude, ozone concentration can be as high as 15 parts per million 0. The concentration of ozone varies with altitude. Various chemicals that humans release into the atmosphere can destroy ozone in the stratosphere.
This has caused a thinning of the ozone layer in recent years, and even holes in the ozone layer over Earth's poles. Ozone molecules are much less stable than regular O 2 oxygen molecules. They are very prone to react chemically with other substances. Ozone is also a type of greenhouse gas. Skip to main content. This is because the amount of ozone produced is directly related to the level of ultraviolet radiation, which is highest in the tropics. On the other hand, processes that destroy ozone are also more effective above the equator, and that leads to the observed relatively small ozone amounts there.
Ozone at mid- latitudes that is were the United States and Europe are located is partly produced in the tropics and then transported to those latitudes. Because of these transport processes there is some seasonal variation in the ozone layer's thickness with higher values during spring than in fall. Back to the Guide Index. Ozone What is ozone? Where is it found? The layer of the atmosphere below the stratosphere is called the troposphere.
That's the region where the weather takes place. Its presence has two reasons. First, ozone from the stratosphere occasionally "strays" from the stratosphere into the troposphere. However, a great deal of tropospheric ozone has its source right here on earth. When high-energy ultraviolet rays strike ordinary oxygen molecules O 2 , they split the molecule into two single oxygen atoms, known as atomic oxygen. A freed oxygen atom then combines with another oxygen molecule to form a molecule of ozone.
There is so much oxygen in our atmosphere, that these high-energy ultraviolet rays are completely absorbed in the stratosphere. The relative heights of atmospheric layers. Also view an animation 1. The formation of ozone, also animated. Ozone is extremely valuable since it absorbs a range of ultraviolet energy. When an ozone molecule absorbs even low-energy ultraviolet radiation, it splits into an ordinary oxygen molecule and a free oxygen atom.
Usually this free oxygen atom quickly re-joins with an oxygen molecule to form another ozone molecule. Because of this "ozone-oxygen cycle," harmful ultraviolet radiation is continuously converted into heat.
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