NASA-Funded Network Tracks the Recent Rise and Fall of Ozone-Depleting Pollutants Pollution hanging over eastern China in February of 2004. Image courtesy the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE. By Lara Streiff's NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center A short-lived resurgence in the emission of ozone-depleting pollutants in eastern China will not significantly delay the recovery of Earth’s protective “sunscreen” layer, according to new research published Feb. 10 in Nature. Stratospheric ozone, also known as Earth’s ozone layer, helps shield us from the Sun’s harmful Ultraviolet (UV) rays. Compounds like CFC-11 (Trichlorofluoromethane, also known as Freon-11), a chemical once considered safe and widely used as a refrigerant and in the production of insulation for buildings, rise to the stratosphere after emission on Earth’s surface. Once in the atmosphere, CFCs are broken down by the UV light and result in the destruction of ozone molecules, both reducing stratospheric ozone concentrations globally and contributing to a “hole” in the layer that appears over Antarctica in the spring.