Murder smoke
Clean air is more precious to life than anything else. However, there are more and more kinds of pollutants in the atmosphere. At present, there are only 100 kinds of air pollutants that have been recognized by people, and their harm to human beings is becoming more and more serious, and many incidents of poisoning have occurred.
19481on the morning of October 27th, thick smoke covered the industrial town of Donora in the United States, and the smoke became thicker and thicker, almost condensed into a piece, and the ground was in a dead wind state. In the afternoon, the situation still didn't improve, and the line of sight could only see the other side of the street. Except for the chimney, all the factories disappeared. People were working in a hurry in the smoke. Although some people began to vomit, the pungent smell in the air did not attract their attention.
More and more people are sick. They feel eye pain, sore throat, runny nose, dry cough, headache and limb fatigue. However, some people have comprehensive symptoms. Within a few days, 59 10 people in the whole town fell ill, accounting for 43% of the total number of residents in the town. Among them, 15.5% was mild, 16.8% was moderate, and 10.4% was severe.
The smelly smoke lasted from the 27th to the 30th, and a heavy rain gradually restored the air to be fresh. Afterwards, it was known that this was due to SO in the air. 2 caused by high concentration.
19521February 5th, the dense fog suddenly enveloped the British capital London, and it was dark and persistent, just like a huge cover over the city. The smoke from many chimneys in rural areas and factories accumulated at low altitude, which made the pollutant concentration increase continuously. At the highest, the smoke concentration per cubic meter reached 4.5 mg, and SO2 reached 3.8 mg.
A group of award-winning cows to be exhibited in London first reacted to the smog. They stretched out their tongues, and it was difficult to breathe. One of them died immediately. 12 cows had to be sent to the slaughterhouse because of illness, and 160 cows needed treatment. At the same time, passers-by also smelled a strong pungent smell, and thousands of citizens felt chest tightness, shortness of breath, sore throat, cough and vomiting, and other diseases also appeared constantly. In four days, nearly 4,000 people died in London, with four times as many people suffering from respiratory diseases and three times as many people suffering from heart disease. Then, there was heavy fog all over Britain, and the temperature reversed. Even in the next two months, more than 8,000 people died of various diseases. This is the world-famous "London Smoke Incident".
After the incident, the British society was in uproar, and the government was forced by the situation to organize an investigation into the victims, but it did not find out the reasons and only reached a vague conclusion: the irritant that caused the death might be the combustion products of coal. Because of the "unknown situation", naturally, few measures were taken. As a result, three similar incidents occurred in London in succession in 1956, 1957 and 1962.
1July, 970 18, there was an incident of death over Tokyo, Japan, due to the high concentration of SO2 discharged from automobile exhaust and factories. On that day, many students at school felt eye pain, sore throat, chest pain, decreased blood pressure, and difficulty breathing. Some people even had spasms in their limbs and fainted, so they had to go to the hospital for emergency treatment. At the same time, similar situations have occurred in Tokyo's Sanying City No.3 Middle School and Kawaguchi City Middle School. The students in the school are very nervous. They know it must be the air, so they should wear gas masks when they go outside the classroom.
The measurement results show that at noon that day, the smog concentration in the city was 10 times of the usual level, the sulfuric acid smog reached 20 micrograms per cubic meter, and the floating dust was 400 ~ 500 micrograms per cubic meter ... All the data exceeded the original environmental standards several times or dozens of times. At that time, the victims could not be counted.
On July 23, a similar situation happened again in Japan, with more than 239 victims. On the same day, 945 people in Tokushima Prefecture fell ill.
The appearance of killing smoke is the result of high concentration of industrial waste gas in the air. The burning of a large amount of coal not only produces a lot of smoke and dust, but also produces a lot of CO2, SO2, NO and other nitrogen oxides. 1 ton of coal contains 5 ~ 50kg of sulfur, which will turn into SO2 twice as heavy as sulfur and enter the atmosphere during combustion. According to the estimation of the United Nations Environment Programme, the global annual emission of SO2 is about 1.5 1 100 million tons, and the annual emission of NO2 is 50 million tons. During the years from 1970 to 1980, the anthropogenic emission of SO2 increased by 5% on average every year.
When these oxides increase, they will generate corresponding acids-sulfuric acid, nitric acid and carbonic acid when encountering water in the human body. How can people stand it?
"Water scarcity" and "water failure"
Water is related to the fate of human beings and whether human beings can live happily and freely. However, since the beginning of this century, the water used for living and industry and agriculture has been increasing. In the past 50 years, the global consumption of fresh water has nearly quadrupled, reaching 4.23 trillion cubic meters per year. Many forecasts show that at the end of this century, the global water crisis will begin to appear: most of Africa, parts of central and eastern regions, northern and northwestern China, India, Mexico and the western United States will all have water shortages.
The water source of the earth is getting more and more tense, and there has been a "water shortage".
However, the small amount of clean water is also suffering from various kinds of pollution: pesticides, fertilizers, heavy metals and so on. The species situation shows that the water quality on the earth is getting worse and worse. It can be said that the earth is also suffering from "septic disease".
In the 1950s, Swedish meteorologists first discovered that rain in northern Europe and even in vast areas of the northern hemisphere is often acidic. Its acidity is similar to that of tomato juice, and some are even as sour as vinegar. People call it "acid rain" figuratively.
Acid rain can be said to be "a god of death from the sky". Its acid content is generally dozens of times higher than the normal content, and its pH value can reach 4.2. It acidifies soil, corrodes buildings and metal materials, harms biological resources, kills a large number of fish, and is of course harmful to people. Due to the lack of carbonate parent materials in some places, acid rain falling to the surface can not be neutralized by surface materials in the process of runoff. As a result, the acidity of the lake increased rapidly, and the acid rain eroded the surface elements greatly, which increased the content of metal elements such as iron and manganese in the lake and changed the chemical types of the lake. The acidification of lake water has seriously harmed the ecology of the lake, causing a large number of fish deaths in thousands of lakes. Of the more than 90,000 lakes in Sweden, more than 20,000 have been harmed by acid rain, and more than 4,000 of them have completely become fish-free lakes.
In North America, the situation is not optimistic. In fact, thousands of lakes in the United States and Canada have become "stagnant pools". 1975, scientists from the United States and Canada jointly conducted a survey in the eastern part of North America. They found that nearly 50% of the lakes there had no fish at all, not only fish and large aquatic organisms disappeared, but even plankton, aquatic plants and algae could not be found. In 1930, only 4% of the lakes there had no fish. The reason was that acid rain made these lakes become.
198 1 year 1 month, a large number of dead fish were suddenly found in the lower reaches of the Colorado River in Texas, USA, which was 5 miles and 50 miles long and spread to the river surface for 200 miles. Later, statistics showed that all 27 species of local fish died, even the blue cat fish weighing 84 pounds were not spared.
At present, there have been three major acid rain areas in the world. In addition to the acid rain areas in northern Europe and North America, the acid rain areas in southern China have also been formed, and the "water failure" will be more serious.
Small life is threatened by its existence. What about human beings? What happened in Minamata, Japan, gave a positive answer.
Minamata is a small town in the south of Kyushu, Japan, and there are abundant fish in the unknown sea and Minamata Bay in the west. Therefore, the fishing industry in this town used to be very prosperous. However, since 1925, one chemical factory after another has been built here, and strange things have happened one after another.
1950, in a small fishing village near Minamata Bay, some domestic cats were found to be swaying left and right when walking for some reasons, and some of them were cramped and paralyzed, and finally they jumped into the water and drowned. People are puzzled, just as an anecdote in the world, and have not studied it. For this kind of cat, the locals gave them a name, called "suicide cat".
1953, another person with a strange disease was found in Minamata town. At first, he was only inarticulate, with unstable gait and facial dementia, and then he was deaf and blind, and his whole body was numb. Finally, he fell asleep for a while and was excited for a while. Finally, he bent over and cried loudly in his mouth and died. No one knew what this strange thing was.
1April, 956, a 6-year-old girl was sent to the hospital by her family because of the same symptoms. The doctor initially diagnosed it as a brain disease and did not pay attention to it. In May, four more patients were admitted to hospital. The hospital began to be a little alert. They conducted an investigation and found that there were more than 50 such patients in the local area.
The problem is serious, which attracted the attention of some doctors in the local Kumamoto University Medical College. Together with the Municipal Medical Association and the Medical College, they formed a countermeasure committee for Minamata strange diseases, and carried out extensive investigations. In the investigation, it was confirmed that this was not an infectious disease. Subsequently, they linked the "suicide cat" with various strange phenomena of human death and found the root cause of eating local fish poisoning.
The news spread that the fish with low water intake would be poisoned. People talked about the color change of fish, and no one dared to buy their fish again. As a result, thousands of fishermen nearby lost their jobs, and they couldn't bear it. They United and held a meeting of fishermen who didn't know the coast, and more than 4,000 people jointly protested to the local chemical plant.
1in the spring of 958, the chemical plant was angry with the civilians and promised to stop discharging wastewater with pollutants into Minamata Bay, but at the same time it secretly led the poisonous water to the north of Minamata River. A few months later, there were 18 poisoned patients in this new polluted area. 1February, 959, after investigation and study, Japan Food Poisoning Committee thought that Minamata disease was related to heavy metal poisoning, especially mercury. After investigation by Kumamoto University, toxic methylmercury was found in the dead bodies, fish bodies and near the outlet of the sewage pipe in the factory, and the concentration of mercury in the sludge near the drainage outlet was as high as 2000ppm. So far, the secret of this "endemic disease" of Minamata was uncovered.
However, the factory refused to admit that while obstructing the investigation, it spent a lot of money to buy off the insider. Therefore, the Japanese government did not seriously deal with this incident, which made Minamata disease spread all over Japan.
1963, a large number of "suicide cats" and "suicide dogs" appeared in the lower reaches of the He Ye River valley on the west coast of Japan. As the Minamata incident was not reported and publicized, there was no vigilance against it. In August of the following year, 90% of local cats committed suicide, followed by residents with dead cats who also developed symptoms of Minamata disease. In a short time, the number of patients with Minamata disease increased to 45, and 5 people died. In this way, the Japanese government intervened, but it was too late. According to 1972, the Japanese Environment Agency announced that there were 283 people suffering from mercury poisoning in Minamata Bay and Akeyagawa, Japan, and 60 of them died.
The ocean is sighing.
The sea Wang Yang, where all rivers flow, is the birthplace of life on earth and a huge pillar for the prosperity of human society. Modern science and technology have proved that nearly two thirds of the earth's surface is covered by seawater. The ocean is not only the birthplace of all life on the earth, but also an indispensable condition for human survival and development. However, human beings have done great damage to the ocean in this century, especially in recent decades, more and more wastes, sewage and drugs have been pushed into the ocean with the rivers rushing down, the coastal dumping and the ship exchanges. The resource-rich seabed has become a dumping ground for nuclear waste, and a large number of precious fish and marine plants are facing the threat of extinction ...
Domestic sewage in cities, industrial wastewater from food, textile and papermaking, and agricultural sewage all contain a lot of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus and metal elements such as iron and manganese, which rush into the sea with rivers. According to statistics, nearly 90,000 tons of phosphorus are discharged into the sea by feces in coastal cities of the United States every year, and about 20 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer are applied in the world every year, and about13 million tons are brought into the sea by rivers. Under the condition of abundant nutrients, a red marine floating organism is over-propagated, forming a "red tide", which results in reducing dissolved oxygen in the water and causing a large number of deaths of fish and shrimp. Although the ocean itself has great natural purification ability, it has become tired today, sighing to mankind that it is incompetent.
1992, the United Nations multinational expert group on marine pollution made a comprehensive and accurate analysis of the marine environment in the world today, and its conclusion was thought-provoking. Experts believe that the pollution in the high seas is very serious, and the coastal areas, especially those near rivers and industrial centers, are getting worse and worse. At present, one of the main problems of marine environmental pollution is that the treatment of industrial waste and wastewater is still not thorough enough, and the sea is a natural dumping ground for these pollutants. As a result, human beings will surely suffer the consequences.
Mankind has begun to suffer the consequences, and the Caspian Sea and Aral Sea are good examples.
Caspian Sea and Aral Sea are two special waters on the earth, which are different from most inland seas and lakes in the world: there is only one direction of water flow, which only flows in and does not flow out. They are located in dry areas, and the evaporation rate is particularly high. The water flowing in will evaporate soon, so although they have no outlet, there is no need to worry about rising water.
Located in the former Soviet Union, the Caspian Sea is the largest saltwater lake in the Soviet Union. Before 1933, its area was quite stable, about 400,000 square kilometers, but since 1933, it has been significantly reduced: 372,000 square kilometers in 1965, which is closely related to industrialization, urbanization and agricultural development.
In the past, 80% of the water flowed into the Caspian Sea every year, and the Volga River accounted for 80% of the water. Since the early 1930s, the Soviet government has announced the construction of 13 large dams along the Volga River for power generation and irrigation. 19 In 37 years, the Soviet Union began to connect Moscow with the Volga River and the Caspian Sea; 1June, 933, the Volga River, the White Sea and the Baltic Sea have been connected; 1952 The canal project of Volga River-Don River was completed, but as a result, the water loss was huge, some of which was lost from underground, but mainly evaporated. In addition, a large amount of river water was introduced into the irrigation canal, and the water flowing into the sea was greatly reduced.
The water level of the Caspian Sea is declining and its area is shrinking. From 1929 to 1970, the water level in the Caspian Sea dropped by 2.57 meters, and the sea surface retreated faster. Every time the water level in the Caspian Sea dropped by 1 meter, the water surface area in the south decreased by 0.5%, while that in the north decreased by 17%.
The same is true of the Aral Sea. From 1960 to 1967, the water level dropped by1.76m, with an annual drop of about 24cm, and then it continued to drop at this rate. 1966 The area of Aral Sea is reduced by 10% compared with 1960.
The decline of water level has caused the pollution of seawater to increase, the fishing quantity to decrease greatly, the disease to increase, the port to disappear and the cultivated land to decrease. At present, the fishery in the Caspian Sea has collapsed, and the catch of perch and pike has decreased by 96% in the past 30 years. However, this is not the most serious, and the biggest decline is the roe production of sturgeon. The caviar produced in the Caspian Sea once accounted for 90% of the world's total output, which was famous all over the world. Now, due to the blocking of fish migration routes, people's over-catch and pollution are increasing, and the sturgeon that swam back from the Volga River to the Caspian Sea to lay eggs has been greatly reduced. In the 1970s, it was not uncommon to catch sturgeons with a growth period of 60 years and a weight of 900 pounds. Now, 90% of sturgeons are killed before they are fully mature and begin to breed. The commercial catch of sturgeon has dropped from 6,700 tons 196 1 year to less than half a ton 1993 in the Yiliang Seyfield River basin south of the Caspian Sea. It can be said that they are dying waters.
It is reported that at present, more than 420 billion cubic meters of sewage is discharged into rivers, lakes and seas every year in the world, which pollutes 5.5 trillion cubic meters of fresh water, which is equivalent to more than 14% of the total global runoff.
In addition to this kind of sewage pollution, oil pollution to the ocean is becoming increasingly prominent.
An important cause of oil pollution is an oil tanker accident. It is estimated that the oil and petroleum products that enter the ocean through various channels every year account for about 0.5% of the world's total oil output, among which the pollution caused by the tanker accident is the most serious. At present, 60% of the world's oil is transported by sea. Because of the collision, grounding or fire of oil tankers, all or part of the oil carried by them flows into the sea. Such things have happened many times, causing incalculable losses.
1in March, 978, the oil tanker "Amoco Cadiz" ran aground off the coast of Brittany, spilling 230,000 tons of crude oil. Although technicians have done a lot of remedial work, half of the crude oil has been recovered or treated, but the other half has evaporated, dissipated or sunk to the bottom of the sea, causing the death of a large number of marine life within the range of 15 km, and forming a fixed oil layer of oil-water mixture within the depth of 60 meters. It was not until three years later that the coastal area was restored to its original state, and it took 10 years to restore the entire harbor or bay to its original state.
Oil spill is another important cause of marine pollution. In 1969, the submarine oil field in Santa Barbara Bay, California, USA, caused a serious blowout accident due to excessive oil injection pressure, and within a few days, more than 1 10,000 tons of crude oil gushed from the seabed, which caused a sea fire that spread for hundreds of miles. After the oil field is forced to be closed, 2 tons of crude oil is still ejected every day, resulting in a layer of1~ 2 cm thick oil layer on the nearby sea surface.
1June 3, 979 ~1March 20, 980, the biggest oil spill occurred in the history of the world. After an oil well in Mexico Bay spewed mud, it spewed out oil and natural gas at an increasing speed. After the oil and natural gas mist came into contact with the running mud motor, a strong explosion occurred immediately, which caused a raging fire, and the rig collapsed, causing serious damage to the whole drilling structure below. The oil lost in one week was more than the 29,000 tons lost in the oil spill incident of Argo Merchant off the coast of Massachusetts in February. Although such a big blowout accident is rare, oil leakage is common in normal submarine oil development, especially in some old oil wells. Due to the development of submarine oil fields and blowout accidents, the world's annual oil influx into the sea is more than10 million tons.
Oil pollution not only loses valuable oil, but also brings serious consequences to marine life. It will take 5 ~ 7 years for organisms to reproduce in the sea area polluted by oil. One liter of oil is completely oxidized, which needs to consume 400,000 liters of dissolved oxygen in seawater. Such a large amount of oil enters the ocean, causing serious hypoxia in seawater, which makes marine life suffocate and die quickly.
198 1 At the beginning of the year, hundreds of thousands of seabirds died in Scandinavia due to the drilling in the British North Sea oil field and the oil spill from a Greek oil tanker. Once seabirds flying freely in the sky came into contact with the oil film floating on the sea surface, their feathers were stained with oil, so they could not swim or fly. As a result, their feathers lost their functions of heat insulation and buoyancy, and seabirds became afraid of cold and even froze to death, or when they arranged their feathers with their mouths. Petroleum compounds that invade seabirds can also cause pneumonia or cause neurological disorders.
The coast is full of dead seabirds, and some seabirds are dying and struggling. Coastal residents witnessed the distress of sea birds in desperation after being stained with oil, and picked up muskets or air guns to kill them, so as to avoid these poor lives being tortured by freezing and starvation.
Pale vitality
Forest is a friend of human beings, which absorbs CO2 through the photosynthesis of countless trees and provides essential oxygen for human beings. Generally, broad-leaved forest can absorb 1 ton of CO2 and release 730 kilograms of oxygen per hectare every day during the growing season. The forest canopy and the litter layer on the ground can also intercept rainwater and make it seep into the ground. An acre of woodland can store at least 20 cubic meters more water than an acre of woodland. Forests can also adjust the climate. The strong roots of trees suck up a lot of groundwater, which evaporates into the air through transpiration of branches and leaves and becomes rain. One hectare of forest can hydrate 70 ~100 tons from underground in summer, so the humidity over the forest area is generally about 20% higher than that in the non-forest area, so the rainfall in the forest area is also higher. However, in order to obtain fuel, one third of the people in the world chop wood for firewood. In Asia, Africa and Latin America, at least11000000 hectares of forest are cut down every year, while the current afforestation rate for firewood fuel in the world is only 2 million hectares. The forest resources on the earth are decreasing at an alarming rate. Large areas of forest land are shaved off, the land is exposed, the fertile soil is lost, the climate is bad, and droughts are frequent, which is promoting the expansion of the desert.
According to the statistics of FAO, from 1950 to 1985, the forest area in the world has decreased by half, and the forest ecological crisis is spreading all over the world. At present, the annual reduction of forests in the world is1800 ~ 20 million hectares. Forest destruction in developing countries is very serious, and forests in most tropical countries are being depleted and degraded day by day. The forest area in tropical areas of America, Asia and Africa is decreasing at an average annual rate of about 0.62%.
Due to the destruction of forests, a large amount of fertile soil is lost every year, and about one-fifth of the land in the world is losing a layer of fertile soil on the surface. Colombia loses 400 million tons of soil every year, Ethiopia loses 10 billion tons of soil every year, India loses 6 billion tons of soil every year, and China loses 5 billion tons of soil every year, especially on the Loess Plateau, where a large amount of sediment pours into the Yellow River, making the sediment content of the Yellow River the highest among all rivers in the world, with the sediment content in each cubic meter of river reaching more than 37 kilograms. The average amount of sediment passing through Sanmenxia reaches1600 million tons every year, and a quarter of it is deposited on the riverbed 400 kilometers downstream, which makes the riverbed of the Yellow River rise by 10 cm every year, forming a "suspended river". 44% of the land in Africa and 43% of the land in South Africa are often affected by drought, and 47% of the soil resources in South America and 59% of the soil resources in Southeast Asia lack fertility.
Due to deforestation, blind reclamation, overgrazing, groundwater table decline and long-term climate drought, about 29% of the world's land is desertification, of which 6% belong to serious desertification areas. Asia, Africa and South America are the most serious. Every year, 6 million hectares of productive land in the world turn into desert, and an average of 10 hectares of land turn into desert every minute. The desert is gradually expanding at the rate of 5 million to 7 million hectares per year, ruthlessly devouring farmland and pasture. In the past half century, the Sahara desert in Africa has expanded to the south by 650,000 square kilometers. Now 64 countries in the world are facing the threat of desertification, and the desert has occupied one seventh of the total land area of the earth.
China is one of the most seriously desertified areas, with 667,000 hectares of desertified land every year, ranking first in the world.
Xinjiang is the province with the largest desert area in China, with a desert area of 42. 1 10,000 square kilometers, accounting for a quarter of the total land area in Xinjiang and a third of the desertified land in China. In the past 30 years, the area of desertification has expanded by more than 80,000 square kilometers. Among 85 counties and cities in Xinjiang, 53 counties and cities have been harmed by desertification. The area of desertification land in the lower reaches of Tarim River accounted for 12% of the area in 58 years, but it expanded to 52% in 1978.
There are 39.5 million hectares of desert, sandy land and Gobi in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, accounting for 33.5% of the total area of the autonomous region. In the early 1950s, the desertification area of Yikezhao League was10/0/10,000 hectares, which increased only from 1957 to 1973 16 years. The mobile sand dunes in the whole league increased from1645,000 hectares in 1957 to 2.766 million hectares in 1977, and an average of 56,000 hectares of land became mobile sand dunes every year.
The intensification of desertification is not the result of natural movement, but caused by human activities that violate the laws of nature. The ecologist Howard Lu pointed out:
"It is people who created the desert, and the climate only provided suitable conditions."
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the process of changing fertile land into desert is one of the most serious environmental crises at present. United Nations experts estimate that more than 35% of the world's land is now under the direct threat of desert formation. Every year, 2/kloc-0.1 million hectares of farmland become completely useless or almost useless due to desertification, and the annual loss of agricultural and animal husbandry output is worth 26 billion US dollars.
The earth is burning.
1988, heat waves hit from every corner of the earth, Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Central Asia ..., and the earth was burning!
In China, the connection between Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing and Nanchang keeps sending ominous signals. 83 people died of high temperature in Nanjing and 600 people died in Nanchang. In the "March 9th" severe winter season in Jilin, the ice and snow melted and the weather was extremely warm. Cairo, which has been "entertained" by the Mediterranean for thousands of years, is also uncharacteristically disturbed by the high temperature of 40 degrees. No matter from east to west, or from south to north, the fiery climate swooped down from the sky like a "tyrant" who killed his eyes. CO2 can regulate temperature and rainfall in the atmosphere, but its content increases year by year. From 1880 to 1970, CO2 in the air increased from 280ppm to 330ppm, and the temperature increased by 0.4 degrees from 1880 to 1945. At present, The world releases more than 5 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, and toxic gases such as SO2 and nitrogen oxides are also increasing rapidly. About 40% ~ 50% of CO2 produced by combustion is trapped in the atmosphere, and the rest is absorbed by the ocean, which seriously pollutes the environment and constitutes an important factor to promote global warming.
The warming trend caused by the release of CO2 from the earth will lead to the partial melting of ice and snow in the Arctic and Antarctic, which will cause the sea level to rise. Since 1940, more than 10,000 cubic kilometers of polar glaciers have melted, which has caused the global sea level to rise by 1 0 ~15cm on average, three times as fast as that measured in the previous 50 years.
Besides CO2, the warming effect of ozone, chlorofluorocarbons and other trace gases on the earth's surface is greater than that of CO21.5 ~ 3 times.
Due to the extensive use of freon for decades, the ozone in the atmosphere has been greatly lost. Scientists have found that an "ozone hole" has been formed over the Antarctic. In 1986, its area is large enough to accommodate the continental United States, about10 million square kilometers, and deep enough to accommodate Mount Everest. 1In September, 1994, the largest ozone hole appeared in the ozone layer over Antarctica, covering an area of about 24 million square kilometers. Even if the amount of chemical substances that destroy the atmospheric ozone layer in the world is reduced by 90% from the current level, the ozone hole over Antarctica will last at least 100 years.
After the Antarctic region, a big hole appeared in the ozone layer over the Arctic. In 1988 1988, the staff of Alfred Wegener Institute in the former Federal Republic of Germany visited the Arctic region by the icebreaker Polar Star. They found that there was also a big hole in the ozone layer over the Arctic, which was only one-fifth of the area of the Antarctic region.
Antarctica, known as the "white continent", is covered by continental glaciers all year round. The glacier area is about13.72 million square kilometers, the average thickness of the ice layer is 1880 meters, the thickest part is more than 4,000 meters, and the total water volume is 257,936,000 billion cubic meters. The emergence of "ozone hole" means that the sun's rays will directly shine on the South Pole, which will If all the glaciers on the Antarctic continent turn into water one day, the sea level of the whole world will rise by more than 80 meters, and a large area of land on the earth will become Zeguo. 1995, scientists were surprised to find that there was a big crack in the Antarctic glacier, which was a sign of the rising temperature in Antarctica.
The fact that the temperature of the earth's surface is rising is the most serious environmental challenge facing mankind today, and its consequences are enough to threaten whether human beings can continue to live on the earth.