A study carried out by Charles University in Prague found that the region of the atmosphere 20 to 65 kilometers above Earth has shrunk by as much as 100 meters every ten years. According to experts, over the next 60 years and according to current climate change predictions, the upper part of the stratosphere could shrink by 4%; In other words, by 2080 it would have been reduced by another 1,000 meters (1 more kilometer), which would put some satellites and their measurements at risk, as well as GPS technology and radio communications, due to the lower friction of the air so that these instruments can operate.
Since the 1980s, when they began to observe the extent of the stratosphere, it has shrunk by about 400 meters, but this process probably started much earlier. Previously, we did not have enough data. While local decreases in the thickness of the stratosphere had previously been reported, this is the first examination of this phenomenon on a global scale.
This discovery is the latest to show the profound impact of humans on the planet. In April, scientists showed that the climate crisis had shifted the Earth’s axis as massive melting of glaciers redistributes weight around the world. Now, the victim is the stratosphere, a layer that extends from about 20-60 km above the Earth’s surface (below is the troposphere, where we live and breathe and where greenhouse gas emissions occur that expand the air and push up the lower limit of the stratosphere ).
Earth’s climate system is a complex fabric of several intertwined factors, so the effects can be far-reaching. Glaciers have shrunk, ice in rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, the distribution of plants and animals has changed, and trees are also rapidly blooming. But while carbon dioxide heats the troposphere, the first 20 km layer of the atmosphere where humans and all other living things meet, it has the opposite effect on the stratosphere.
This reduction in the stratosphere is a clear sign of the climatic emergency in which we are immersed, since it contains the very important ozone layer, on which we have already wreaked havoc through our CFC emissions. While collective global efforts have succeeded in halting ozone depletion, which caused a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, our greenhouse gas emissions have been altering the entire stratosphere.
“[We] show that stratospheric contraction is not just a response to cooling, since changes in pressure from both the tropopause and the stratopause contribute,” write the authors in the journal Enviromental Research Letters that collects the study.
This leads to the conclusion that better and more complete observations of the upper part of our atmosphere are needed to assess the contraction of the stratosphere.
What other changes are our emissions producing in the atmosphere that we have not yet discovered? The experts wonder.
Referencia: Stratospheric contraction caused by increasing greenhouse gases Petr Pisoft, Petr Sacha, Lorenzo M. Polvani, Juan Antonio Añel, L de la Torre, Roland Eichinger, Ulrich Foelsche, Petr Huszar, Ch Jacobi, Jan Karlicky. 5 May 2021 • © 2021 Enviromental Research Letters
