Barrons AP Environmental Science

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

  1. (A) The stratosphere has been cooling over the past three decades. The
    stratosphere contains the ozone layer, which absorbs sunlight and heats the
    stratosphere. This long-term cooling trend is generally accepted to result
    from the loss of the ozone layer as a result of human-made influences.
    However, the cooling trend is not uniform like ozone loss but, rather, broken
    into a series of jumps or discontinuities most likely associated with major
    volcanic eruptions that inject aerosols into the stratosphere. The aerosols
    also absorb sunlight and heat from the stratosphere, thus temporarily
    offsetting the cooling trend from ozone loss.

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