Though we’ve been watching the destruction of the ozone for several decades now, new reports of the depletion of the ozone layer over the United States are being met with alarm.

Harvard University scientists published a study today showing that strong summer storms are pumping water vapor into the upper atmosphere of the United States, an event that could potentially trigger ozone-destroying chemical reactions. Most of the time, the chemical reactions that destroy ozone occur in very cold temperatures. Jim Anderson, the lead scientist behind the study, suspects that concentrated water vapor has allowed the reactions to happen at higher temperatures. Though ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons have been banned since 1987, they still linger in the atmosphere, causing further harm.

The ozone layer provides a critical barrier between the sun’s ultraviolet rays and the people, animals and plants that inhabit the earth. Most worries about the ozone layer have focused on Antarctica, where its thinning has been observed for more than 20 years. But with almost no population, the dangers posed by an Antarctic ozone hole are significantly lower than those posed by the one scientists are predicting for the U.S. Researchers warned about the increase in exposure that will be caused, potentially leading to a rise in skin cancer.

Even with all of the research being done, there are still a number of open questions. Scientists know the water vapor is going as high as 12 miles, and that one cause of increasingly stormy weather is climate change, but they could not predict how many more of these vapor injections will occur. One thing we do know: Wear your sunscreen.

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