Scientists have detected four new man-made gases that damage the Earth’s protective ozone layer. The experts were trying to pinpoint industrial sources of tiny traces of the new gases, perhaps used in making pesticides or refrigerants that were found in Greenland’s ice and in air samples in Tasmania, Australia.
The ozone layer shields the planet from damaging ultra-violet rays, which can cause skin cancer and eye cataracts. In total, the scientists estimated more than 74,000 tonnes of the four had been released to the atmosphere. That is only a small fraction of the million tonnes of CFCs produced every year at a 1980s peak, according to the team of scientists in Britain, Germany, Australia, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
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