Department of Earth System Science

A new approach is needed for calculating the ozone depletion potential (ODP) of short-lived gases with mean lifetimes less than 100 days. Clearly, the ozone loss from such gases depends strongly on the location and season of emissions. It is proposed that delivery to the tropical tropopause is a surrogate for the amount of halogen entering the stratosphere. Thus 3-D global models, with accurate simulation of tropospheric chemistry and transport, can calculate the ODP specific to tropical sources (high) and high-latitude sources (low). The ODP of CH₂BrCH₂CH₃  from this analysis ranges from 0.0002 to 0.06 depending on the location and season of emissions.