The Ozone Layer and its Effect on Sea Surface Temperature
1. By: Alicia Delos and Nate Tippe
Teacher: Ms. Everett
Southridge High School
Grade: 10th and 12th
2. Description of Images
• Area of the world: The Antarctic Ocean
• Dates used: October 1980- October 2010
• Parameter depicted in image: Sea Surface Temperature and
the Ozone Hole
5. • The ozone is a natural gas found in our atmosphere
• The "ozone layer" is a region in the stratosphere a few miles
above earth's surface
• The ozone layer shields humans and other living things from
harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun
• Human activity in the past several decades produce a chemical
(chlorofluorocarbons) which is "killing" the ozone layer and
making it shrink
• Ozone depletion occurs mostly in the poles
• In the Antarctic, there is a huge ozone "hole“
• With the increase of ozone harming chemicals, the ozone holes
can increase
6. • The ocean's most common elements are hydrogen, oxygen,
sodium and chloride
• The earth has and still continues to go through climate changes
• Global warming has an effect on every living thing on earth
• Earth absorbs energy from the sun and then emits some of that
energy back into space. This is called the "greenhouse effect"
• The greenhouse effect describes how water vapor, carbon
dioxide and other gasses alter the return of energy into space
therefore heating Earth's surface
7. • Question: Does the area of the ozone hole correlate with the
area of the water that is below 0° C
• Hypothesis: The bigger the ozone hole is, the warmer the water
in the Antarctic will be because the sun will have a more direct
way of getting to the ocean causing it to warm up.
8. • Independent Variable:
• Month: October
• Years: 1980- 2010
• Dependent Variable:
• The area of sea surface temperature below 0° C and the area of the
ozone hole
9. • Source of Images:
• NASA NEO
• NASA Earth Observatory World of Change
• Sources of Background Information:
• NOAA
10. 1. How to prepare the images for measurement:
a. First you have to crop the image so that it is only the area of the
world that you want (in this case the Antarctic ocean). Next, you have
to set the image so that instead of just one image it’s an RGB stack.
After that you have to choose the “green” stack.
2. Set the scale to 3120 km per 289 pixels
3. Set the threshold:
• Set the threshold to include pixel values between 11 and 67 for sea
surface temperature and 116 and 253 for the ozone hole
• This will include the sea surface temperature below 0°C and the
ozone hole size below 220 dobson units (the units used to measure
the ozone)
4. Set measurements to area and limit to threshold then
measure the image
11. Date Area of Sea Surface Area of the Ozone
Temperature Below Hole (km2)
0° C (km2)
Oct. 1981 228802502 17283560
Oct. 1985 208297492 19842643
Oct. 1990 213524156 23038053
Oct. 1995 220452045 24720683
Oct. 2000 212101589 24180584
Oct. 2005 223792228 26168614
Oct. 2010 156988578 26539278
12. The area of the Sea Surface Temperature VS the
area of the Ozone Hole
250000000
200000000
Area (in km^2)
150000000 Area of SST above 0 C
100000000 Area of the Ozone Hole
50000000
0
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Time (in years)
13. • The highest area of sea surface temperature occurred on Oct.
1981
• The lowest area of sea surface temperature occurred on Oct.
2010
• The highest area of the ozone hole occurred on Oct. 2010
• The lowest area of the ozone hole occurred on Oct. 1981
14. • Data Trend:
• For the sea surface temperature, the water seemed to be getting warmer
with more time. With the ozone hole size, the hole seemed to be getting
bigger with time.
• Unusual Findings:
• There were some years where the water would not follow the trend and
would actually have a larger area with below 0° C water than the past
years.
15. • Hypothesis: The bigger the ozone hole got, the warmer
the water in the Antarctic Ocean was. Without the
ozone, the suns ultraviolet rays will get further into the
earth’s atmosphere causing the water to get warmer.
Our hypothesis was supported by the data and we
found that there was a negative correlation between
the ozone hole size and the area with colder sea
surface temperature. The “R” value for the negative
correlation is -0.45.
• Future Prediction: The more that the ozone gets
destroyed the warmer the earth is going to continue to
get.
16. • 1. The pictures are flat and the earth is round. So some of the
areas near the south pole may be larger or smaller than they
actually are.
• 2. The program used to measure the area (Image J) closed
down so the scale may be off in actual size.
• 3. For the ozone hole pictures, some of the ozone was less
dense in areas we didn’t measure.
• 4. The area measurements were difficult to get after the Image
J program shut down so they might not be exact.
17. • Humans need the ozone hole to protect them from the sun’s
harmful UV rays. The ozone acts as a shield to living things on
earth. Without the ozone, it would be very difficult for anything
to survive. Humans would be getting severe skin cancer. The
ozone provides a 80 - 95% protection. If the ozone were to be
completely destroyed humans would have a major increase in
sun burns and skin cancer.
18. • Plants cannot live and grow with heavy UV rays, and neither
can plankton which would affect the ocean’s food chain. If fish
started dying off from starvation, the Earth’s intricate food web
would be ruined. Animals would have no plants to eat because
those plants would be getting burned by the sun’s UV rays.
19. • Carlowicz, M. "The World We Avoided by Protecting the Ozone Layer."
NASA’s Earth Observatory Website. 2009. Web. 14 May 2012.
<http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/ozone.php
>.
• Climate Prediction Center Internet T, . "Stratosphere: Southern Hemisphere
Ozone Hole Size." National Weather Service. 29 Aug. 2005. Web. 14 May
2012.<http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/sbuv2to/ozo
ne_hole.shtml>.
• http://www.noaa.gov/