When we started discussing the ozone hole and its anthropogenic origins, the deleterious effects on our atmosphere's chemistry made it easy to overlook the human lives affected in the southern hemisphere. Pronged by the book's statement that ground UV-B levels of light are increased by 3-6x during the appearance of the ozone hole in the spring, I found an article on PubMed about Punta Arenas, Chile, a medium-sized city located on the extreme southern tip of South America, whose inhabitants over the past 15 springs have been seeing an increase in severe sunburns and photosensitivity disorders. I believe this study is essential for a community whose risk of overexposure to UV rays is high. This way, individuals can become educated and learn how to lower their personal exposure risk and avoid sunburns that could eventually lead to malignant melanomas.
For the full article visit: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11807429&dopt=Abstract
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