African Climes

  Air pollution is connected to climate change in various ways. First is that some of the causes of air pollution are also major causes of climate change. Climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions of which fossil fuels is the biggest source. Mining and extraction of fossil fuels as well as refining and the use of coal, petroleum and natural gas produces air borne pollutants such as carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, both nitrous oxide and nitrogen dioxide as well dioxins, furans and particulate matter. In addition to this, the use of fossil fuels produce the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide which all are greenhouse gases and warm climate. Image source - Annenberg Learner The second connection is that there are substances which are both climate forcers and pollutants. A climate forcer is anything whose presence affects climate in one way or the other. That is, they “force” climate. These substances include particulate matter particularly black car

Ozone gas is made from the combining of three oxygen atoms. Its molecular structure is (O3) as opposed to the normal oxygen that we breathe which is (O2). The ozone layer is a protective layer of gas that naturally occurs high up in the air, in the lower stratosphere. The ozone gas is formed from the splitting of an oxygen molecule by the rays of the sun, specifically ultra violet rays. This separates the oxygen molecules with each individual atom reacting with another oxygen molecule to make three atoms sharing a covalent bond. This is what makes ozone. The earth’s atmosphere is divided into several layers. The first and lowest is the troposphere followed by the stratosphere. The stratosphere is where majority of ozone is located, at 10 to 50 kilometers above the earth’s surface. Ozone is a very important gas, without which life on earth would be non-existent. By its reaction with sun rays, it absorbs solar ultraviolet rays and so prevents them from reaching the earth where they