World Ozone Day 2023: Date, History, Facts about Ozone Layer

World Ozone Day, observed every year on September 16, is also known as the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer. The United Nations General Assembly designated the date in 1994 to commemorate the signing of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer in 1987. Initiation of the ozone layer’s depletion necessitated the declaration of an action to preserve it. In 2017, thirty years after the Montreal Protocol, it was observed that the breach in the ozone layer had closed, and its effects are expected to last up to a century.

The background of World Ozone Day

The ozone layer is a region of the stratosphere that absorbs the majority of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. It has a higher concentration of ozone than other regions of the atmosphere, although it is relatively small compared to other gases in the stratosphere. It is primarily found in the lower stratosphere, between 10 and 22 miles above the planet, with variations based on geography and the seasons.

Charles Fabry and Henri Buisson, two French physicists, discovered the ozone layer in 1913. The radiation emitted from the sun’s surface to the earth’s surface is typically consistent with the spectrum of a black body at extremely high temperatures, but there was no radiation below a wavelength of approximately 310 nanometers at the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. This led scientists to conclude that something in the atmosphere was absorbing the ultraviolet radiation that was absent from the spectrum. The spectrum of the missing radiation was eventually matched to a single known chemical, ozone, after several scientific experiments.

British meteorologist G. M. B. Dobson conducted extensive research on the chemical’s properties and created a simple spectrophotometer for measuring stratospheric ozone from the ground. Sydney Chapman, a British physicist, discovered in 1930 the photochemical mechanisms underlying the formation of the ozone layer. The ozone in the earth’s stratosphere comes about as a result of ultraviolet light colliding ordinary oxygen molecules with two oxygen atoms, thereby splitting them into individual oxygen atoms after which the atomic oxygen then combines with unbroken Oxygen.

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5 essential facts about the ozone layer

The origin of the word ‘ozone’ is the Greek verb ‘Ozein,’ which means ‘to scent.’

Ozone chemical is a blue gas that emits a pungent odour, and sure, it is detectable in the air.

Ground-level ozone is detrimental to humans because it can cause chest pain and breathing difficulties.

One molecule of ozone can contain up to three Oxygen atoms.

The depletion of the ozone layer is currently the leading cause of global warming and the greatest climate change concern.

WORLD OZONE DAY DATES

Year	Date	Day
2023	September 16	Saturday
2024	September 16	Monday
2025	September 16	Tuesday
2026	September 16	Wednesday
2027	September 16	Thursday