Specifically, there was an American station in Antarctica from 1961 where a Dobson spectrophotometer was installed. In August 1964, for the first time, satellites were used to measure ozone concentration. These were weather satellites from NASA’s Nimbus program. In the 1970s, NASA was worried that the spacecraft that they were sending to the moon might disturb the atmosphere.
They feared that the spacecraft might hurt the ozone layer. Fortunately, the spacecraft didn’t have any negative effects. But the negative effects were caused by some other small daily life things. A chemical that was in your hair spray bottle, in the can of shaving cream, and was used as a solvent in the fridge. We call this chemical category as Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC).
In June 1974, a controversial scientific paper was published by three scientists which won the Nobel Prize. In this scientific paper, they showed how the ozone in the atmosphere is getting depleted due to CFCs. These scientists warned that CFCs have a lifespan of 40-150 years and they have the potential to completely deplete the ozone layer. These scientists were mocked after the publication of this paper. Some people didn’t believe it at all. They said that it was nonsense. By that point in time, CFCs had become very common chemicals.
