Environmental Catch-22?: Mending Ozone Hole May Worsen Climate Change: Scientific American
For decades, these winds have been speeding up near Antarctica; repairing the ozone would weaken the winds, he says, and shift them back toward the equator, affecting weather in the entire Southern Hemisphere, including Antarctica as well as Australia, parts of Africa and South America.
This also means Earth’s southernmost continent might experience even more warming in future as the winds continue to shift and allow relatively warmer air to cover it, potentially speeding the melting of ice shelves. In addition, if there were no hole, the replenished ozone would trap even more heat as greenhouse gas concentrations also rise, according to Polvani.
Atmospheric scientist Judith Perlwitz of the University of Colorado at Boulder and her colleagues reached a similar conclusion, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. No one has factored in the role that the ocean—critical to the regulation of Earth’s temperature—would play if the ozone hole is closed.