Mechanism of stratospheric ozone depletion. 1. on chain processes in the stratosphere

摘要

The characteristics of the chain processes of stratospheric ozone depletion are considered. It is shown that the basic feature of these processes is the presence of a limiting stage, which determines the rate of chain propagation in this process and, accordingly, the rate of ozone depletion. It is also shown that the practice, so far widespread in the stratospheric chemistry, of defining the rate-limiting step of the chain process as a single reaction with the lowest rate throughout the stratosphere does not enable to correctly determine the rare of the chain process and leads to a significant overestimation of the latter. Methods for correctly calculating the rate of the limiting step for an arbitrary number of chain propagation reactions and for determining the termination rate and the chain length are for the first time proposed. Application of the developed method is demonstrated by the example of the nitrogen oxide cycle.