This shrinking means that the upper atmosphere will become less dense, resulting in about a third of the drag on satellites and other objects in low Earth orbit by 2070. Calculate Ingrid Knossen, researcher at the British Antarctic Observatory.
On the face of it, this is good news for satellite operators. The payload has to keep working longer before falling to Earth. But the problem is other bodies that share these altitudes. The amount of space junk, debris from various types of equipment stranded in orbit, is also increasing and staying longer, increasing the risk of collisions with satellites currently in operation.
More than 5,000 active and decommissioned satellites, including the International Space Station, are in orbit at these altitudes, accompanied by more than 30,000 pieces of debris greater than 4 inches in known diameter. According to Knossen, as cooling and contraction accelerate, the risk of collision increases.
This may be bad for space agency business, but what effect will changes in the sky have on our lower world?
One major concern is the already fragile ozone layer in the lower stratosphere, which protects us from harmful solar radiation that causes skin cancer. For much of the 20th century, the ozone layer thinned under attack from industrial emissions of ozone-eating chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Every spring, a full ozone hole formed over Antarctica.
The 1987 Montreal Protocol was intended to repair the annual pits by eliminating these emissions. But it is now clear that another factor, stratospheric cooling, is wrecking this effort.
Ozone depletion is over-acted in polar stratospheric clouds, which form only at very low temperatures, especially over the poles in winter. However, as the stratosphere cools, the chances of such clouds forming increase. While the Antarctic ozone layer is slowly reshaping as fluorocarbons disappear, the Arctic is proving to be different, says Peter von I of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Ocean Research in Potsdam, Germany. says Dell Garten. Cooling in the Arctic is exacerbating ozone loss. The reason for this difference is not clear, says von der Garten.
In the spring of 2020, von der Garten believes that the first major ozone hole will form in the Arctic, wiping out more than half of the ozone layer in places, and that this is the reason for the increase in carbon dioxide.2 concentration. It may be the first of many.recently paper of Nature CommunicationsHe warned that continued cooling means that current expectations that the ozone layer should fully recover by mid-century are almost certainly too optimistic. Of current trends, he said, “The favorable conditions for large seasonal polar ozone losses may continue into the end of the century, or worsen … much more than is commonly believed. It can last a long time,” he said.
Whereas the area beneath the Antarctic ozone hole was almost unpopulated to date, the area beneath the future Arctic ozone hole will be among the most densely populated areas on Earth, including central and western Europe. This is even more of a concern because it may If you thought the thinning of the ozone layer was his 20th-century woes, you might have to think again.
