Ozone as concentrations in μg/m. The study of ozone concentration in the atmosphere started in the 1920s. The highest levels of ozone in the atmosphere are in the stratosphere, in a region also known as the ozone layer between about 10 km and 50 km above the surface (or between about 6 and 31 miles). However, even in this "layer", the ozone concentrations are only two to eight parts per million, so most of the oxygen there is dioxygen, O, at about 210,000 parts per million by volume. Ozone in the stratosphere is mostly produced from short-wave ultraviolet rays between 240
Ozone ozone. In the clear atmosphere, with only nitrogen and oxygen, ozone can react with the atomic oxygen to form two molecules of O An estimate of the rate of this termination step to the cycling of atomic oxygen back to ozone can be found simply by taking the ratios of the concentration of O to O. The termination reaction is catalysed by the presence of certain free radicals, of which the most important are hydroxyl (OH), nitric oxide (NO) and atomic chlorine (Cl) and bromine (Br). In the second half of the 20th Century the amount of ozone in the