LHASA

A Chinese meteorologist has mooted the idea of building an Ozone Observation Station in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, to study the thinning of the ozone layer above the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. Zhou Xiuji, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led the research group that studied the changes in the total volume of ozone above China. The study showed that from 1979 to 1991, the total ozone volume in an area around Lhasa was 11 per cent lower than areas at the same latitude, and the ozone volume is on a continuous decline, dropping by 0.35 per cent each year. The findings have been endorsed in a research project jointly conducted by China and Japan in 1998 on the total volume of ozone, the vertical distribution of ozone in atmosphere and the radiation of ultra-violet rays from the Sun.