Much research is being done in the Arctic to find out what changes there will mean for the rest of the world. One scientific team has recently looked at chemical reactions that act as cleaning agents for our atmosphere.
The researchers performed ten experiments using a “snow chamber”, and looked at first-year sea ice, salty icicles and surface snow. They found that bromine, a halogen gas, is released from the snow by sunlight and reacts with a type of ozone.
This reaction essentially scrubs the atmosphere of man-made chemicals and reduces ozone levels in spring. Losing sea ice would mean that there is less solid ground for snow to land on, therefore making these reactions rarer.
Read more at Purdue University