Human impacts on atmospheric chemisty

An overview is given of the main anthropogenic influences on the chemistry of the atmosphere. Industrial and agricultural activities have altered the chemical composition of the atmosphere in many important ways, which is ref lected especially in the distribution and concentrations of ozone in the tr oposphere and stratosphere. On one hand, as a result of industrial chlorofl uorocarbon emissions, ozone has been depleted in unexpected major ways in t he polar stratosphere. On the other hand, especially as a result of NO emis sions, tropospheric ozone has increased both in the industrial midlatitude regions and at low latitudes, in the latter mostly because of tropical biom ass burning. In the future, growing anthropogenic emissions by developing n ations will have an additional effect on the climate and the self-cleaning (oxidation) power of the atmosphere.