Canada dropping the ozone ball, scientists warn

by Margo McDiarmid, Environment Unit, CBC News  Posted: Feb 13, 2012 7:39 PM ET

 Leading atmospheric scientists are warning that Canada’s cuts to its ozone monitoring program are already having effects on the world’s ability to monitor air quality and ozone depletion.

Five scientists from high-profile U.S. universities and NASA say in a recently-released paper that Canada is jeopardizing the scientific community’s ability to monitor for holes in the ozone, especially over the Arctic. They point out that monitoring has already stopped in five locations in Canada and the website that distributed the information has been pulled down.

“Canada is a bellwether for environmental change, not only for Arctic ozone depletion but also for pollutants that stream to North America from other continents,” Anne Thompson, a professor of meteorology at Penn State University, said in a release. “It’s unthinkable that data collection is beginning to shut down in this vast country.”

The five scientists published their paper in Eos, the newsletter of the American Geophysical Union, which represents 61,000 earth and space scientists from around the world.

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