@knittingknots2

How is this happening as we are meant to have banned the main CFC ozone depleting chemicals decades ago, the ozone layer was recovering, so what has happened ?

@zleap They think the Tongo volcano that erupted kicked enough water into the stratosphere to create enough ions to hammer the ozone this year. Sometimes, Nature happens.

@knittingknots2

How does water vapoour cause depletion of ozone.?

I think Ozone is created by the bombardment of O_2 with radiation in the atmosphere, so would be interesting to learn more about the process.

@zleap " Stratospheric water, or H2O, can break down into OH ions over time. Those ions could react with ozone, which is made of three oxygen atoms, to create water and oxygen. "

In other words, water up there shot up by volcanoes gets hit by processes from sunlight which also can react to the ozone and destroy it by plain ol' chemical reactions.

From an article last year speculating about what might happen livescience.com/tonga-eruption

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