Ozone depletion an ozone layer in the Earth's stratosphere were discovered by Sydney Chapman in 1930. Short-wavelength UV radiation splits an oxygen () molecule into two oxygen (O) atoms, which then combine with other oxygen molecules to form ozone. Ozone is removed when an oxygen atom and an ozone molecule "recombine" to form two oxygen molecules, i.e. O + → 2. In the 1950s, David Bates and Marcel Nicolet presented evidence that various free radicals, in particular hydroxyl (OH) and nitric oxide (NO), could catalyze this recombination reaction, reducing the overall amount of ozone. These free radicals were known to be present
Ozone depletion warming as a subset of the "ozone hole". In the beginning, classical green NGOs refrained from using CFC depletion for campaigning, as they assumed the topic was too complicated. They became active much later, e.g. in Greenpeace's support for a CFC-free fridge produced by the former East German company VEB dkk Scharfenstein. The metaphors used in the CFC discussion (ozone shield, ozone hole) are not "exact" in the scientific sense. The "ozone hole" is more of a "depression", less "a hole in the windshield". The ozone does not disappear through the layer, nor is there a uniform "thinning" of the