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The 2011 tsunami that run into Japan released thousands of tons of ozone - destroying chemicals and nursery gases into the air , a new study show .
Thanks to the country ’s strict building codes , the enormousmagnitude-9 Tohoku earthquakeleft Japan ’s habitation and businesses relatively untouched . But the earthquake triggered a mortal tsunami that roared through coastal cities and villages , destroy almost 300,000 buildings , according to the National Police Agency of Japan .
An aerial view of damage to Sukuiso, Japan, a week after the earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated the area in March, 2011.
The damaged insulation , refrigerator , air travel conditioner and electrical equipment unleashed 7,275 tons ( 6,600 metrical scores ) of halocarbon , the study report . Halocarbon expelling rose by 91 percent over distinctive levels in the year following the earthquake , said Takuya Saito , lead field of study source and senior researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba , Japan . [ In Pictures : Japan Earthquake & Tsunami ]
" It was not a single , short - terminal figure pulse , " Saito say .
The six halocarbons measured in the study are a group of chemicals that attack the Earth ’s protective ozone layer and can also contribute to planetary warming . The halocarbons include banned gases such as chlorofluorocarbons ( CFCs ) , as well as hydrochlorofluorocarbons ( HCFCs ) , which are being phase out of use of goods and services . The researcher also find significant increases in hydrofluorocarbons ( hydrofluorocarbon ) and sulfur hexafluoride , bothgreenhouse gases .
Emissions of the banned chemical substance CFC-11 were 72 pct high than before the March 11 , 2011 , earthquake . " This was surprising to us , because it had been banned in Japan 15 years before the disaster , " Saito told Live Science in an e-mail consultation . " We had almost bury the fact that this ozone - depleting throttle still exist around us . "
About 50 percent of the halocarbon emissions after the earthquake were of HCFC-22 . Its absorption rose by 38 percent between February 2011 and March 2012 , the written report reported . Emissions of HFC-134a and HFC-32 uprise by 49 percent and 63 percent compared to the years before the quake .
Saito and his colleagues launched the study after noticing unusually high emissions of the halocarbon HFC-32 at Cape Ochiishi in Hokkaido , Japan , come after the seism . The researchers have studied atmospheric halocarbons at this site since 2006 , Saito sound out . The researchers then took air - monitoring data from several stations in Japan and used atmospheric clay sculpture to set how much of the discharge were due to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami .
The findings were published March 12 in the journalGeophysical Research Letters .
Although the global upshot of this one event is small , no countries account for raw disasters , such as earthquakes and tsunami , in their annual approximation of greenhouse - gas releases to the atmosphere . " It is apparent that there are unreported emissions , " Saito said .
The fresh study shows it may be necessary to include the amount of halocarbon released by ruinous case in emission estimates , Steve Montzka , a research chemist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder , Colorado , who was not imply in the research , said in a argument .
Based on spherical halocarbon emission estimates , the extra emissions from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake would account for 4 percent or less of entire global halocarbons , Saito said . And the halocarbon were weak contributors to global warming compare to carbon dioxide and methane . The gases released by the tsunami accounted for less than 1 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the year following the earthquake .
