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Owl
(172.146.208.12) on 7/14/2004 - 12:17 p.m. says: ( 5 views
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"Actually, those are the reasons they are a problem"
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But somehow those heavier than air, chemically inert substances were responsible for a hole in the ozone layer 
If freon and like molecules were lighter than air, they'd just be displaced to the top of the atmosphere and be quickly lost into space in the same way that hydrogen and helium generally are. Instead, they tend to remain in the atmosphere where they build up. Since they aren't chemically reactive, they don't degrade, either. The only way we ever lose this stuff, then, is by something whacking the molecules and ionizing them, which is only going to occur where there are reasonably high energy photons incident on the gas. Since the atmosphere tends to filter out those photons, the only place this naturally occurs is at higher altitudes, where the ionized molecules (which now are just as reactive as they were unreactive before) are going to steal an atom from an adjacent molecule. If it steals from N2 or O2, you're left with a single radical which will have to steal from something else. If, however, 03 gets stolen from, the two remaining atoms rearrange to a stable 02 configuration and the reaction ceases. Result: less overall 03 at higher altitudes.
If Freon and other CFCs were either less chemically inert or were lighter than air, this high-altitude reduction of ozone concentrations would never have a chance of occurring to any measurable extent.
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