Warday

MEMORANDUM

TO: CHARLES F. DURRELL, JR.

Assistant to the President for Emergency War Affairs FROM: Winston Sajid

Chairman, Committee on Long-Term Effects

National Security Agency

DATE: 30 March 1992

SUBJ: 12th Report on Atmospheric Effects

Concurrent studies by U.S. and United Kingdom task forces suggest a continuing deterioration of stratospheric conditions.

Specifically, there has been an observed depletion or thinning of the ozone layer of the upper atmosphere. Studies conducted in the summer of 1988 have been used as a baseline measure. A full report on all aspects of atmospheric deterioration is complex, but for purposes of summary it can be reported that an overall depletion of approximately 14 percent has occurred in four years.

It must be emphasized that while a further depletion might be expected in future years, it is not possible at this time to project a statistical trend with any certitude. Such a trend is difficult to predict because (1) little data were collected for approximately 18 months following the war, until atmospheric studies were resumed by the U.K. and other Western European nations; and (2) such a dramatic change in ozone levels is unprecedented and existing mathematical models are not sophisticated enough to consider all the variables.

Data are presently being gathered to document the observed increases in skin cancers, increased propensities to skin burns and rashes, and the most significant ecological effects, such as the warming trends at the North and South poles, the disappearance of some subtropical vegetation, and the global depression in crop production.

At this time, the American-based U.K. atmospheric teams are preparing a series of high-altitude rocket surveys, as well as completing, with the University of Tokyo’s Atmospheric Research Laboratory, a multivariate computer model designed to calculate long-term ozonal changes.

The President will be informed as soon as this Agency has had a chance in the next six months to review the results of these studies.

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