Antarctic Ozone Hole Leveling Off

twistedfuck writes: "An Irish Time article reports that the size of the hole in the antartican ozone layer is levelling off and should begin reducing in size. It seems like it should be welcome news but it is tempered by the fact that more UV radiation will reach the southern hemisphere this year because the hole will persist longer. Unfortunately I can not find any details regarding the NOAA report on their website." Update: 11/06 17:31 GMT by H :Thanks to Isaac Lewis, NOAA Sysadmin and Slashdot reader, for pointing out more information, as well as pointing out the ozonelayer site.

Comments

Hooray for regulation?

[bonzoesc]

Are we to believe that this reduction in size is a result of global regulation of CFCs, or could it possibly just be part of a natural cycle? Too bad we didn't get satellites before styrofoam.

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[EdgeSmash]

Well, it is hard to tell, but certainly reducing CFC production can't hurt. Only thing we can do is sit back and wait.

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[c_jonescc]

Last summer I did some educational outreach for the lab I work for, at a day-camp for science kids, and the topic was ozone one day. If I remember correctly regulation can't possibly account for this, because the CFC's have a destructive lifetime in the atmosphere for something on the order of 100 years. ie. the little buggers break apart O-3 for a long time after we stop using them. Even if we stopped all CFC use today, we wouldn't see any atmospheric effect for many decades. Begging the question: why IS the hole reducing?

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[c_jonescc]

That's not what I said. Yes CFC's ARE responsible for ozone depletion, but halting use will not show immediate results. That does not make it unimportant in the long term. I would say quite the opposite.

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[legoboy]

No, but it is what the preponderance of the evidence suggests.

a) Upon seeing problems, we've heavily cut back on all sorts of emissions under the belief that it will fix the problem.
b) Results of a) (above) will take sixty more years to manifest.
c) Problem is disappearing long before results of a) are known.

Therefore, perhaps a) was a faulty assumption that costs businesses billions annually, and the ozone hole is really just a cyclical thing?

That said, lower emissions are good, if only for two reasons - one, so that whilst canoeing the Indian Arm of the Fraser River, I don't know that Vancouver is (that way) due to the brown sky. Two, because they *do* seem to be responsible for all sorts of human respiratory problems. You know, if environmentalists weren't all a bunch of crackpots who use pseudoscience to justify whatever their jihad of the day is, I'd probably identify myself as one.

PS - The ICE at the NORTH POLE is MELTING!!! Oh NO!!! ... Oh wait, that happens all the time?

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[Kharny]

Some very true points. I agree with you.
Luckily enviromentalists come in less extreme versions as well.

On the polar cap melting:
This will probally cause the next ice age ;)
It has been proven that forest fires, in the massive kind of way, have caused the first iceage.
We are just a slow forest fire for the earth.

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[xnn]

Actually, there were satelites monitoring global ozone levels before the widespread introduction of CFCs. Thing is, the data was used to monitor _global_ ozone levels, thus any abnormally high or low readings were discarded. It took NASA about 6 years to be convinced that it was worthwile to go back over the data they had collected. When plotted there is a constant depletion of ozone from the late 60s when cfcs were widely adopted as both a propellant and a refrigerant.

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[Dudes]

I never understand why people believe that doing the correct environmental 'Thing' should always cost business jobs and cause all of our lives to get worse??

Surely it isn't that hard to use public transport occasionally, to reduce how much chemicals we use ( there are many many ways without making the slightest bit of difference to our lives)

Surely we all want to live in a nice clean world? Dont we?

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[mcwop]

The hole has always changed size with temperature. Hot air expands and cold contracts.

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[Wire Tap]

On the polar cap melting:
This will probally cause the next ice age ;)

Wait, how is the MELTING of the ice caps going to result in another Ice Age? I think you have that the wrong way around...

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[the_2nd_coming]

Surely it isn't that hard to use public transport occasionally

I do agree that even thought the science of what caused the hole is not pointing to CFCs that we should do a better job of not creating biodestructive compounds; however, speaking to the point I have listed above, have you ever tried to take a bus in Detroit? god forbid you have to get to the suburbs where most iner city folk come to work for better pay and a safer work location....it can take 4 hours!!! so yes it can hurt :-)

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[twinpot]

It is thought that the increase in fresh cold water could disrupt the "Atlantic Conveyor" effect that gives rise to the Gulf Stream. If this stopped, or diminshed significantly, many areas of Europe would have considerably colder climates (i.e. more like central Russia, but colder in the summer too).

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[lobsterGun]

Here's the cliff notes version of the cycle as it was told to me. (bear in mind that I'm rather gullible)

1. Polar caps melts.
2. which causes sea levels to rise.
3. which causes the surface are of the Oceans to increase.
4. which causes more water evaporate into the atmosphere.
5. which causes more clouds.
6. which causes more sunlight to be reflected into space
7. which causes the earth to cool
8. which causes more snow to fall.
9. which causes the glaciers to advance.
10. which causes sea levels to drop since water is stored in glaciers and since the surface area of oceans is smaller this leads to less moisture in atmosphere.
11. fewer clouds cause temperatures to warm
12. which cause glaciers to receed and sea levels rise

rinse/repeat

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> CFCs that we should do a better job of not
> creating biodestructive compounds;

Keep in mind that CFC's are one of the least biodestructive compounds of all time. They react with nothing. That's why they were used for aerosols, INCLUDING distribution systems for asthmatics, for whom CFC's were ideal. They don't react with the chemicals they're spraying. They don't react with person's body, including a sensitive person's lungs. That's also why they were used in refrigeration systems, because they didn't corrode the metals, which almost everything does because of the large temperature and pressure differentials inside such a system.

It's only because of the theorized breakdown in the upper atmosphere that they were considered a problem.

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> What happens when pasta and antipasta collide?

I don't know, but I do know that I need to loosen my belt to contain the expanding event horizon.

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[maxpublic]

This is true, but you're assuming that the Earth is warm right now, or that the sea level we currently have is the historic norm over geological time. It isn't; right now the Earth is in one of it's coldest periods in history, with the rare occurrence of *two* polar ice caps (there's generally only one).

Furthermore, because the ice caps are so large the sea levels are at some of the lowest points they've ever been. If the ice melts you will, in essence, get a 'return' to normal sea levels as well as in increase in surface temperature because (believe it or not) increased water vapor in the air is a greenhouse gas. This is also a normal event, as, for example, under normal temperatures southern Greenland has been home to extensive mangrove swamps and has seen average temperatures in the 70s-80s.

Your assumptions bear out when the Earth swings to the other extreme and becomes too hot, putting so much water vapor into the air that the reflected sunlight is greater than the heat trapped by the vapor in the first place. This will happen long after both caps have melted and Greenland becomes the tropical vacation spot of choice.

The system self-regulates, but the extremes are much greater than you might imagine. Especially since we're at the near end of the cold extreme, not in the middle. What we consider warm is actually pretty darned cold, and what we consider to be 'normal' sea levels are really very low.

Max

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[Kharny]

Actually the Sealevel is about normal at the moment, at low sealevel you can walk to Great Britain from continental Europe ;). We are on the colder side at the moment, correct. The problem is just that we are in a backward cycle at the moment because of the co2 percentage in the air.

Re:Hooray for regulation?

[maxpublic]

The sea level is low due to the extremely rare formation of two ice caps. There are a number of good textbooks which will give you a detailed analysis of 'average' sea levels over geologic time.

That is not to say that it hasn't been lower in the past. I know of several times when it's been lower than it is now (e.g., during an intensification of the current 'Ice Age' some 20,000 - 100,000 years ago).

Max

Antarctic

[Rura Penthe]

Pleeease can you spell it right? :) I swear it isn't hard!

Re:Antarctic

[PD]

I think you are mistaken. The citizens of the Antarctic prefer to be called Antarticanesians.

Re:Antarctic

[dbolger]

Yeah? Well, the papers called the Irish Times too, but most of us here on Slashdot have learned not to point such things out. Years of CmdrTaco have taught us a lesson ;)

Size will decline?

[Man of E]

I don't know much about ozone and such, but why would the size of the hole start to decline? Are we producing additional ozone that could somehow refill the hole? Is the remainder of the ozone layer spreading out to fill the gap?
Are there any meteorologists/ecologists out there who know how this works?

Re:Size will decline?

[dragons_flight]

Sunlight naturally converts some oxygen to ozone in the upper atmosphere. Problem is that when CFCs and other chemicals are present, they eat up ozone far faster than it is typically produced.

Ozone is harder to produce and easier to break down when it is cold, which is one reason ozone is at its lowest levels over the poles in winter (also when there is a deficit of sunlight). The poles are also especially vulnerable because global wind patterns circle around them rather then refreshing the air. Even the most stubborn air pollutants will break down or become absorbed by the environment if we stop pumping them out and give the Earth time to get back to normal.

Re:Size will decline?

[Malc]

I think that most of the ozone that we make doesn't make it to the upper atmosphere. I believe that the ozone up there comes about via some other process. However, it was believed that globally released CFCs (e.g. from old fridges) were destroying the ozone faster than it was being produced. CFCs are very long lasting. The ban on CFCs (10-15 years ago???) means that the CFC levels in the atmosphere should start to fall, and with this fall, naturally produced ozone should be able to keep up.

Re:Size will decline?

[Catskul]

Ozone is also know as O3 and Smog(when mixed with other pollution). Is constantly produced by Internal combustion engines (cars). Unfortuneately it doesnt do us much good down here.

Re:Size will decline?

[Alcimedes]

Ozone that makes it to the upper atmosphere is most often produced by lightning. the storms tend to push it up high enough that it gets where it needs to be. in the past, lightning wasn't enough to make up for the CFC's. i believe in my physics class they said that one CFC molecule could destroy over 1 million O3 molecules. it basically just comes along, breaks the bonds then goes along its merry way, doing it over and over again.

Re:Size will decline?

[Art Tatum]

Did they tell you how CFCs make it into the upper atmosphere? If so, how?

Re:Size will decline?

[the_2nd_coming]

nice try, but it takes CFCs 50 years to get to the upper atmosphear where it can cause the damage to O3. after that the CFCs remain active for 50 more years. so lets see. the CFCs that were released around 1950 are just getting there, that means that the CFCs that were released the day befor the regulations were aprooved have 40 more uears to get there.....seems that the hole is not caused by the CFCs in the air......remember, a corolation does not equal causation, only that there is a relationship. ....perhaps we could not start to measure the atmosphear chemical levels before we began to produce CFCs. perhaps the hole had been growing for the last 400 years. but since our small scope of observation corrolated to the time that we could start measuring the chemicls in the atmosphear we drew a conclusion that was not scientific at all, instead we drew an emotional conclusion based on only part of the facts.

Re:Size will decline?

[Christianfreak]

The poles are also especially vulnerable because global wind patterns circle around them rather then refreshing the air.

Then how do the pollutants get there? Walk there on their own? I agree that we should take care of the environment but some of this stuff is so concocted it not even funny. As in the idea that our pollutants are the major cause of the ozone depletion. While I think they may have some effect, I believe its more likely to be a naturally occuring cycle.

Re:Size will decline?

[Alcimedes]

they just float up there gradually. something to the extent that they're really light. thing is, it takes a long time for them to get that high. i'm sure they're tossed around the atmosphere like anything else, but they're light enough that once they get up top, they stay there. a lot of research went into CFC's. no one thought they would be dangerous. they do nothing bad at all in the atmosphere we live in. no one realized they'd make it up that far though.

Re:Size will decline?

[dragons_flight]

Okay, I don't know that the ozone hole is principally man-made, or all the potentially natural causes involved. I do know that if human CFCs are up there then they will be causing problems for ozone. Since chlorine and bromine act as catalysts for the break down of ozone, they don't need to be present in large amounts to have a large impact.

An interesting question to ask though is where does that 40, 50, 60, 100 years number for travel time and pontency time of CFCs come from. Not surprisingly it comes from those opposed to controls on CFCs. What do people promoting those controls say? If they are honest, they typically say something along the lines of "we haven't the foggiest clue". Before the ozone hole no one really had any expereince with gas diffusion on this scale. And you are kidding yourself if you think anyone in either camp has a really good understanding of high level atmospheric chemistry, they don't. There are constant surprises.

Similar but not directly related, the experience with the carbon cycle suggests that those the numbers for CFCs might be significantly high. Scientists want to know how fast carbon replenishes itself in the low atmosphere, or equivalently how long it takes before the majority of CO2 emitted today is returned to the biosphere. Prevailing theoretical wisdom pegged this number at around 20-30 years, but recent experimental evidence is giving a number more like 4 years. I could believe that the estimates on CFCs were similarly too large.

Ultimately though, if CFCs can reach up that high then they will cause damage. Whether they are a primary (or even a significant) cause of depletion is hard to tell, but the ozone layer will probably be better off that we aren't using them. The issue of the ozone hole won't be resolved by people like us sitting on slashdot, it may be though by people who go out and see if the levels of pollutants in the upper Antartic atmosphere actually are dropping off.

Re:Size will decline?

[Tribe]

Ozone is actually a respiratory irritant. Here is a small blurb on it. In short, Ozone at the surface of the Earth is bad, and would probably react with other compounds in the atmosphere before it had a chance to rise up to where it would not be a health risk and would absorb UV light.

Re:Size will decline?

[the_2nd_coming]

hey, I think that we need to control all substances that can damage the earth, but lets not do it through miss information and FUD, lets tell people right out that the reduction in the hole may not be caused by our lower production of CFCs, but we should maintain those production levels because they are harmful. the time for fear was over after the legislation was passed, lts educate people and show them that there are other reasons to keep levels low.

Re:Size will decline?

[-Harlequin-]

i>nice try, but it takes CFCs 50 years to get to the upper atmosphear where it can cause the damage to O3

This is kind of sad. Read up on the details of the science involved in the ozone issue - it is _known_ beyond all reasonable doubt that the problem is manmade.

Ozone hole science is NOT based on correlation.

It sounds like you've misheard something along the lines of "CFC's can take as long as 50 years to reach the upper atmosphere" and turned it into some cosy argument for there being no need to change anything.

You say "perhaps" this, "perhaps" that. But the fact is that most of these "unknowns" are not unknown at all. The doubts you raise have been laid to rest a long time ago by sound methodology. Nobel-winning methodology in one case. Just because joe-public-friendly articles don't have the space or readership go into hard, tedious, boring, ugly science doesn't mean the science isn't rock solid.

Just because the science indicates that particular industrial emmissions are the cause doesn't mean that it must be some sort of wacko lefty greenie psuedo-science.

Re:Size will decline?

[Yet Another Smith]

nice try, but it takes CFCs 50 years to get to the upper atmosphear where it can cause the damage to O3.

My guess is that what you read somewhere said, chemicals can take as long as 50 years to reach the ozone layer, but on balance they get there "It can take days or even years for some chemicals to reach the stratosphere." (this quoted from this article at ENN.)

Also, not all CFCs take so long to break down. To quote the ENN article again, "Ozone depleting chemicals such as CFCs, halons and other substances commonly found in coolants, foaming agents, fire extinguishers and solvents linger in the atmosphere for different periods of time."

perhaps the hole had been growing for the last 400 years.

Actually, the hole did appear after we began measurements in Antarctica. This does not preclude some cyclical natural phenomenon, but there's good evidence that anthropogenic effects are at least a major part of the problem.

Indeed, the evidence is much more clear than anthropogenic global warming.

Re:Size will decline?

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> but it takes CFCs 50 years to get to the upper
> atmosphear where it can cause the damage to O3.

Either that, or the 50 years was a number scientists pulled out of their ass when asked why the hole didn't show up earlier, rather than question the theory itself.

For anyone keeping score:

The theory: since we've 40 more years of massive increases in CFC release to go, we're in for a hell of a time!

The reality: Why didn't massive CFC problems show up in the 60's? Umm, they must take 50 years to get up there, not just a few. Pay no attention to the smoke and mirrors.

Re:Size will decline?

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

Anybody ever use C14 to create a few million cubic yards of CFC, release it, then track the CFC ratio up through the atmosphere through the years to see exactly how fast it gets up there, comparing carefully to premeasured baselines at all altitudes?

Expensive, yes, but far less expensive than the "solution", especially if unnecessary, not to mention virtually irrelevant if it actually is a problem.

I didn't think so.

Re:Size will decline?

[the_2nd_coming]

please show me the study that gave the data that showed the Ozone hole was non existant in 1940 but then in 1960 it was there. then show me the study that shows that a man made OZone hole will close up in 10 years.....sorry but you are corrolating agin sir.

hey bob, I kicked the door and the light came on. this must be how you turn a light on.

Re:Size will decline?

[dragons_flight]

Drat. As someone pointed out, I misspoke and somehow managed to reverse the issue of who was speaking for the long travel and life spans on CFCs.

Those SUPPORTING CFC controls say that they are persistent in the environment and take years to reach the upper atmosphere. Those OPPOSED to controls or just plain NUETRAL, say that they don't know the time span involved.

Don't know how I managed to get that backward when writing it down. Brain fart I guess. Sorry.

Re:Size will decline?

[Art Tatum]

OK. Because I had heard that they were much heavier than air and couldn't get into the atmosphere at all. Thanks.

Re:Size will decline?

[-Harlequin-]

Saying a fact is established is not the same thing as establishing a fact. If it is proven, why don't you mention the known proof in your post?

Because we're not talking simple sound-bite psuedo-science here. It's big, it's complex, and it's not something you can just post to slashdot as a few pages of text and a link. If people aren't going to do their own homework, I can't do it for them. All I can do is say "you're making assumptions that are simply not the case. Read up on these things rather than spreading misconceptions about them."

I'm not going to waste my life trying to educate someone who quite possibly needs and wants to believe that pollutants never had any real effects, and will defend said worldview from any and all evidence or reason. But every now and then I waste a much smaller amount of time bitching about politically-motivated ignorance. And sometimes when it's clear that someone is talking crap they know nothing about, maybe I'll respond with an equally idiotic post, such as the one you just replied to :-)

Unfortunately in this case, "Reading up" doesn't mean Popular Science, Time, or CNN, or whatever. It takes actual research. And likely no-one is going to bother. And next time Slashdot covers a story about o-zone, likely the same people will trot out the same misconceptions about how it's probably natural, and is another evil greenie conspiracy hurting good clean industry to the detriment of us all.

Mother Nature

[rockwood]

IMHO Mother Nature takes care of herself. Fires to clean the earth, wind to sweep away the garbage, seasons to refresh the vibrance of life and so forth...

This article suggests that though the total mass of the hole is reducing in size, it is also maintaining itself for longer periods. Without research, an immediate assumption would suggest that this would be letting the same doses of UV rays reach the earth annually.

I'd say Mother Nature is attemtping to counteract our efforts and regulate the earth the way she has done for millions of years!

And given our (human) track record.. I'd give 1000:1 odds in favor of Mother Nature doing the right thing.

Re:Mother Nature

[NecroPuppy]

*sigh*

The increase of UV radition getting to the earth due to the depletion of ozone is smaller than the error factor of the best detection instraments.

And, even if it weren't, even changes as high as 20% aren't abnormal in nature. Otherwise, there wouldn't be life in Florida...

Re:Mother Nature

[mandolin]

And, even if it weren't, even changes as high as 20% aren't abnormal in nature. Otherwise, there wouldn't be life in Florida...

Explain about the life in Florida bit?

Re:Mother Nature

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

She's just another "god" that people worship. Unfortunately, since it's not in any historical pantheons, people have an increased fervor for her.

I'm also going to pre-savage any responders who say Gaia is well-defined in ancient pantheons because you're a buffon who is completely missing my point.

Re:Mother Nature

[EFGearman]

Yes, please explain this O Brother of Mine.

I believe that you are once again operating with incorrect scientific information. But I would still like to hear this explained.

EFGearman

Re:Mother Nature

[NecroPuppy]

The difference between the UV level in some parts of Florida and other parts of the US is as much as 20%.

So, if people in Montana, for example, were worried about UV, they could look at Florida and realize that it isn't that bad.

Well, except for Epcot.

Re:Mother Nature

[NecroPuppy]

Ahh, someone let the idiots loose on Slashdot again...

In the April 15, 1993 issue of the Washington Post, John Fredrick, an atmospheric physicist from U. Chicago, was quoted as saying, in reference to UV light, that,

"The amount of increase that the theory says we could be getting from ozone depletion is smaller that the error of our best measuring instraments.

If an increase of 20 percent were going to be so damaging, there should be no life in Florida..."

Big Deal...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who Cares? This only affects those of us that
actually go outside, and in all honestly, how many of us have actually been outside in the
past two weeks. (Outdoor-type quake mods do not count)

mccann@telalink.net

Re:Big Deal...

[Zspdude]

Please, curb your insensitivity... Antarctic tanners everywhere are heartbroken! Now to get the same bronze glow, they have to stay out longer, which is never easy as I'm sure you'll appreciate....

Additional info at EPA site

[cats-paw]

I was just looking into this not too long ago. Strangely enough, we met someone from Israel while we were travelling in New Zealand who said it had closed, which I was sure was wrong. Turns out it's still there.

And remember it's not really a hole, i.e. there is ozone present, it's just at significantly lower levels.

Here are a couple of sites I found useful :

www.epa.gov/ozone/science/hole/holehome.html
www.atm.ch.cam.ac.uk/tour/

When we were in New Zealand the sun feels different ! It feels very intense and somewhat uncomfortable, and it was only the first month of spring. You HAVE to use sunscreen.

Re:Additional info at EPA site

[taniwha]

yup, I'm from NZ - I moved to the US long before the ozone hole was noticed - the sun back there definitely has (had) a bite that it doesn;t in the US

Re:Additional info at EPA site

[sirsnork]

Speaking as a New Zealander. The Sun and Heat here are probably unlike anything most people have felt. Burn time in the summer comes down as low as 10 minutes. You can't even get in your car and go for a drive without getting burnt. In mid summer you literally have to put on a top with long sleeves or your arms will physically hurt if you are out in the sun

Re:Additional info at EPA site

[Jeff Probst]

yup, I'm from NZ - I moved to the US long before the ozone hole was noticed - the sun back there definitely has (had) a bite that it doesn;t in the US

thats because new zealand does not have the smog blocking the sun like the US has.

take their smog away and they'd have more trouble than they currently do.

Re:Additional info at EPA site

[twinpot]

Oh, I dunno about that. Christchurch (in winter admittedly) does a good smog impression, mainly due to a temperature inversion problem right above the city.

Wellington air may be polluted for all we know, but is usuall transported to Santiago by the wind before anyone gets a chance to notice ;-).

(I once read that a "clean air standard" was taken just off south cost of Wellington)

Re:Additional info at EPA site

[gwyrdd benyw]

When we were in New Zealand the sun feels different ! It feels very intense and somewhat uncomfortable, and it was only the first month of spring. You HAVE to use sunscreen.

Also check out this salon.com article about life in Chile under the hole. Scary stuff.

Re:Additional info at EPA site

[MadLep]

Ahh yes. Heading into another NZ summer. Expect 10 minute sun burn times and ever increasing skin cancer.

Thanks to my pasty white Irish ancestry and the wonderful pollution from US & Europe.

Re:Additional info at EPA site

[nadaou]

When we were in New Zealand the sun feels different ! It feels very intense and somewhat uncomfortable, and it was only the first month of spring. You HAVE to use sunscreen.

That's because the earth is closer to the Sun when the southern hemisphere is having their spring and summer. The 'hole' in the Ozone was noticed during the first Geophyiscal year, in 1954, long before Freon came into common use. [generic "it's all made up" rant omitted]

True & only slightly true, but..
When I first moved to southern New Zealand I set up the daily? ozone snapshot [lost the URL] of the south pole as my browser's homepage. My personal observation & conclusion after looking at a few months of data from the Southern Hemisphere spring (nb: I have no idea of what the relevant long term temporal scale is in upper atmospheric weather systems), was that it got way further north in S. America than it ever got in NZ. Not that we didn't get lower levels, just not to the 'deep purple' levels on the bottom of the colorbar that Antarctica & wisps up into S. Am. got to. Also shifts seemed to happen on the scale of days for whatever that's worth..

The big reason our sun is so friggin intense is that we have very clear air. Nothing but ocean for thousands and thousands of miles upwind. No significant dust or smoggy pollutants to filter out all the nasty UV. Trade lung cancer for skin cancer. Turn your globe upside down and have a look. No land.

Of note/other rants:

The hole is bigger in the Southern Hemisphere than it is in the Northern due to the stability of the circumpolar winds that circle Antarctica continually. Once again, my upper-atm iq could be whacked, but this is what hampers ozone which is produced in the tropics (and Northern Hem. dirty air) from making it down to the way south quickly.

Work is ongoing into what happens when the UV making it through the hole kills off the free floating microscopic plants that make up the bottom of the food chain in the southern ocean. Wipe that out and you've got really serious fish/whale/food/stress on other fishery stocks type problems. Be afraid. Total collapse of the food chain. Bad Thing. As these guys also make most of the oxygen you breath, we should probably treat them nice. I hear that evolution is ready to step in though, and some of these little phytoplanktons which have on-board sunscreens will take over darwin-like & will save the day, maybe.

Freon/CFCs ain't the only anthropogenic ozone killing gas, so Freon use/time offset hole size correlations won't always line up, and the hole won't go away simply as a function of time since production was banned. Illegal CFC factories just south of the Texas border and in China (proof? I have no proof! ha!) do not help. I figure that a fair whack (majority?) of the world's cumulative supply of Freon is still sitting inside old A/C's & fridges just waiting to leak out as well.

A one year reduction in hole size, while nice, does not mean very much. The upper-atm is very stable and these things could easily linger for a century+.

Stick a bunch of fair skinned northern Europeans on south pacific islands and you really shouldn't be surprised when they all burn and get skin cancer.

This goes for both the global warming 'debate' & for ozone depletion, nuclear holocaust, whatever: geologically it's all pretty insignificant. We aren't fucking the Earth, we are fucking ourselves. All those really smart PhD world class scientist type people aren't making this crap up to prop up some 'greenie' agenda or to get chicks or funding or whatever. Stop being so fscking selfish.

And besides, all those cute little sheep are getting damaged eyes and going blind!

Problem with Environmental Theories

[Moridineas]

The problem with environmental theories is that they are just that...theories.

Much like chemistry of 50 or 100 years ago in many ways would seem laughable to what we know now (and will again in 50 years probably), the science of the environment is a young and new science. Unlike chemistry or physics, it's much harder to do experiments, and the timescales involved are immense.

The truth is we simply know too little about the Earth to make longterm models and whatnot that are dead on. We can make GUESSES, and maybe even good guesses, but there is still so much that we don't know at this point.

As a side note-it is my understanding that CO2 levels during the time of the dinosaurs were much higher than they are today. The Earth can handle huge changes with relatively little environmental impact. It's been around (what? 5 billion years?) a long time, I don't think humanity can destroy it in a little over two century.

Scott

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[mrwilsox]

You're right, we're not going to destroy the earth in a little over two centuries. However, we are making great strides toward making the earth very, very hard to inhabit for humans (and a number of other critters). If we just let things keep on going as they are and use up all of our fossil fuels and spew pollution into the air, land, and sea, the earth won't be a great place to live for us. But you better believe Mother Nature wouldn't care one bit if humans disappeared forever. Earth itself would keep on living, with other species remaining and probably a lot happier that we're gone.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[rockwood]

Environmentalist's concern about the ozone layer and the hole in the atmosphere brought about the end to natural CFC's (freon) being used throughout the world. Whether that was over-reacting has really yet to be seen, but when the volcano in the Phillipines erupted it was reported that more CFC's poured into the air than the U.S. could in a hundred years. Making the amount used in the U.S. miniscule in comparison to a single volcano. Though there is no doubt that the U.S. was polluting through frivolous use of CFC's. Even with conflicting environmental and scientific reports the ban was put in place, with great suspicion, as to it being an effective tool to prevent depletion of the ozone layer.

The DuPont Chemical Company had already developed and patented safer synthetic freons, at 10 times the costs to consumers prior to the ban being imposed. - David Icke

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[volkris]

Whether or not that was overreacting will NEVER be seen.

There is no way to isolate the variables. We'll simply never know.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Safety Cap]

It's been around (what? 5 billion years?) a long time, I don't think humanity can destroy it in a little over two century.

It has actually been around about 4.6 billion years (age of the oldest rocks).

As other folks pointed out, we humans can't (yet? ever?) destroy the earth, but we can certainly make it unable to support our form of life.

One last thing: "theories" are generally accepted by the scientific community until they are disproven. The semantics of the word does not lessen the idea behind it. The "theory of plate techtonics" is just that: a theory -- but some plates keep subducting and causing active vulcanism nonetheless.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Moridineas]

This is true--however some thoeries don't pan out. It was a theory that men lived on mars, that diseases were caused by spirits or curses, and that fire was one of the four elements.

My point is that given what we know, the theory of global warming and our direct effect one things like the ozone should not be taken as canonical--take it cum grano salis.

Scott

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[CaptainCarrot]

As a side note-it is my understanding that CO2 levels during the time of the dinosaurs were much higher than they are today. The Earth can handle huge changes with relatively little environmental impact.

Actually, the environment at the time of the dinosaurs was hugely different. Earth had no polar ice caps, and the continents were arranged differently. In the dinosarus' heyday around the middle of the Jurassic, the Atlantic Ocean didn't exist. The bulk of the land was grouped into an enormous crescent surrounding what is now the Indian Ocean. The coasts were warm and humid; the continental interior was desert. It was a world utterly unlike that we live in today, and we probably could not have flourished in it.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Jormundgard]

Environmental science is over 100 years old, but it didn't start to thrive until after WWII.

The ozone hole and CFC sitatuion is one of the most well understood things in science however. It's due to the following:

• Companies used to produce CFCs - a combination of Chlorine, Fluorine, and stuff that is extremely resilient. Most importantly, it's resilient to radiation, so it can survive long distances. Note that some people try to compare this to the chlorine dumped by Mt. St. Helens - but free chlorine is easily busted apart by radiation, while CFCs can survive the trip ahead of it.
• The Equatorial Winds are a series of currents that blow from the equator to the poles (with a slight lean towards the north(?) ) - these blow chemicals form the equator (where humans mainly live) to the poles. Chlorine molecules are destroyed in the upper atmosphere by radiation, but CFC's survive the trip.
• Finally, at the poles, the CFCs (which take a while to decay) break up in appreciable amounts at the poles, where the free chlorine reacts with the ozone, and breaking it apart. The fact that there are free fluorine atoms in the poles, which is only possible by man-made actions, is the smoking gun.
• 
  Based on the equatorial cycle, one would expect to be free of CFC effects after about 100 years - I guess it's been about 25? So I guess this is about when one would start to notice the effects.
  
  Although there are the occasional puppets who still denounce ozone problems, the industries and governments were immediately convinced by the evidence, which is why humans have probably fought off this problem.
  
  Finally, the CO2 issue is a global warming thing, which isn't really related to the ozone hole problem. That's a polar icecap melting problem, and the data is still not totally convincing---the problem is that some predictions say that it's too late to prevent a 1m rise in sea level.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Moridineas]

Thanks for your informative reply. How do we know for sure the CFC's caused the ozone "hole" ? Is it possible that historically there have been weakpoints in the ozone, and that humans maybe only exacerbated this, or maybe even have had no impact at all?

Scott

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Jormundgard]

People (e.g. chemists) know that chlorine reacting with ozone will break ozone apart, and people know that CFCs can make it to the arctic, at which point they decompose (based on their decay rates). I hope that answers your question, but let me know if it doesn't (post or email).

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Jormundgard]

Oops, I didnt address everything. Also, there is data of the ozone density of it steeply decreasing from about 1950 to 1990, at which point it stabilized out, in reaction to decrease in the use of CFCs (actually, I think they measure something else that's proportional to the ozone density - I don't remember). That coupled with the chemical fact is pretty good evidence, although greenpeace would probably say incontrovertible :).

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Art Tatum]

Mother who? I know of no such person.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Stelmsind]

Which volcano in the Phillipines poured out CFCs? I'd be very interested in hearing about a volcano that poured out chemicals that do not naturally occur! CFCs are manmade - they are no naturally occuring CFCs.

The hazards we now associate with CFCs were discovered in the 1960s when a British chemist (Lovelock) was interested in tracing the motions of air masses. He was using CFC's to do so, as they were ideal for tracing air motions, being chemically stable and not naturally-occurring (they are only man-made) so their presence in an air mass could not be confused with CFC's coming from natural sources.

Perhaps you are thinking of the theory that volcanic chlorine caused ozone depletion? There are a number of problems with this:

(1) There was significant O3 loss in the 1980's, but no major volcanic activity then.

(2) There has been major volcanic activity since O3 monitoring began in the 1950's, but it was not necessarily associated with declines in O3. That is, O3 losses and volcanic activity appear to be uncoupled in time (lack temporal consistency)

(3) Measures of hydrogen chloride in the stratosphere after the relatively recent eruptions of Mt. Pinatubo and El Chicon showed less than a 10% increase in stratospheric HCl following those eruptions, while stratospheric HCl has increased steadily across recent years. Furthermore, it is estimated that 1% of the Cl released by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo Cl made it to the stratosphere, judged by the increase in HCl in the stratosphere following the eruption and the estimated release of Cl by the volcano.

(4) Stratospheric hydrogen fluoride has also increased steadily in parallel with HCl, as would be consistent with CFC sources.

(5) Much of the HCl produced by volcanoes (or Cl from sea salt) is injected into the troposphere and very little of that makes it to the stratosphere, as it is washed out first. Volcanic emissions include abundant water vapor, and HCl and NaCl are quite soluble in water, while CFC's are not.

(6) Most of the HCl that does make it to the stratosphere is rapidly washed out -- that is the major removal mechanism for Cl from the stratosphere.

(7) After volcanic eruptions, scientists find enriched sulfate in ice caps, suggesting that the eruptions inject sulfate into the stratosphere, where it gets widely distributed before being washed out. However, ice caps are not enriched with Cl following volcanic eruptions, suggesting that most Cl doesn't make it to the stratosphere where it could get dispersed as sulfate does.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[egjertse]

Uhm, actually Mother Earth would care very much if humans were to magically disappear over night, as the average surface temperature of the planet would drop dramatically. Don't remember the numbers right now, sorry. Remember, warming up the atmosphere isn't all bad, and we've done that for a long time. Even the body heat of ~5 billion people contribute signifficantly.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[carm$y$]

Very interesting. I wonder if you can point me to some info on the web about this...

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Mr. Slippery]

Environmentalist's concern about the ozone layer and the hole in the atmosphere brought about the end to natural CFC's (freon) being used throughout the world....when the volcano in the Phillipines erupted it was reported that more CFC's poured into the air than the U.S. could in a hundred years.

If you got your news from something other than right-wing talk radio and press releases from toxic chemical manufacturers, you might know that there are no natural CFCs in any substantial quantity on this planet.

Volcanic eruptions can put chlorine into the atmosphere. But that's meaningless, because chlorine isn't chlorofluorocarbon, and doesn't reach the statosphere.

It's amazing that anti-ecological industrial propaganda has become so widespread that otherwise intelligent people believe shit like this.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[fists_of_fun]

You are right in that the C02 levels where much higher in the past and have even fluctuated dramatically recently. However all these natural changes in CO2 have occured over a geological time frame allowing the plant and animal species to migrate north or south as their ideal growing zone has changed.

What we do no is that we have managed to change the amount of CO2 and other gases in the atmosphere far more quickly than natual process.
In fact the only events that may cause such dramatic and swift changes are also extinction level event ie super volcanoes and space object impacts.

So there is a reason to be concerned especially when you combine the aerial pollution the destruction wild habitat and more importantly the industrial harvesting of the worlds oceans.

I eat meat drink beer and dont hug trees unless I have been at the absinthe. Nothing wrong with wanting to be able to breathe and eat tuna carpaccio in 20 years time ;-).

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[LMariachi]

The problem with environmental theories is that they are just that...theories.

Funny, that's exactly what creationists say about evolution. To quote Stephen J. Gould:

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact" - part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science - that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome.

The problem has nothing to do with the "theoryness" of environmental science, it has to do with the relative dearth of data with which to develop theories. In any case, as far as practical approaches, erring on the side of caution would be a prudent one. No factories are going broke because they had to install scrubbers in their smokestacks, just as loggers weren't losing their jobs because of the spotted owl. The picture of onerous environmental regulations as an unbearable crippling burden is a smokescreen thrown up by industry.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[dragons_flight]

Other people have said important things about about differences in the world in the age of the dinosaurs and how you can't destroy the earth but you might make it hard to live on, but I want to add one more.

The highest known levels of CO2, in fact a jump to around 10 times the modern value (IIRC) occurred prior to the age of dinosaurs and is correlated with the extinction of 90% of all species alive at that time. Of course it's not neccesarily causal and might just be a side-effect of whatever killed all those species, but I would be very leary of supporting arbitrary changes in CO2.

A little CO2 increase might have a net positive impact, but I would certainly want to take it slow and not be uncontrolled. Besides I'm not sure I want to live in a world like the one the dinosaurs lived in.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Detritus]

Chlorine is an element. How is radiation going to destroy it?

My understanding is that the CFC molecules are broken up by solar radiation. The free chlorine then acts as a catalyst for the decomposition of ozone molecules.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[krlynch]

That is, O3 losses and volcanic activity appear to be uncoupled in time (lack temporal consistency)

Out of curiosity, how has that statement been confirmed? Detecting delayed effects in time series of earlier causes is an incredibly tricky business when the intervening steps are affected by a host of other variables.

To make those statements less theoretical, let me put it this way:

• Hypothesis: Volcanic activity causes the majority of the depletion of ozone. How do we rule this out?
  
• Facts: Volcanoes emit HCl and other Cl compounds, which rise into the atmosphere. Some are washed out before they reach the stratosphere, some are not. How long do they take to get there, how is that timing affected by other things (solar storms, El Nino, the atlantic hurricane season, monsoon season in the Indian Ocean, weather patterns over Africa, etc...). Which of these (and other facts that I don't know about) are important, and which aren't, and how do they affect the data?
  
• Other hypotheses: Ozone is affected by more than just Cl and F compounds, but also has natural cycles, is affected by stratospheric wind patterns, which also have cycles, is affected by El Nino, which also has cycles, etc. etc. etc. What other variables affect stratospheric ozone, and how do you control for them? There have to be literally thousands of them, and I'm certain that not all have been studied. How were they ruled out?
  

The question, then, is "How can you show conclusively that variations in stratospheric ozone are NOT caused primarily by natural effects?" "How do you show conclusively that volcanic activity is uncorreclated with ozone fluctuations when the delay in volcanic emissions arriving in the stratosphere is unknown?"

I'm very curious as to how this was done; from my experience in physics experiments, attempting to show correlation when there are variable time delays between cause and effect is incredibly difficult. Even more difficult is ruling OUT a correlation when there are variable time delays. Do you have primary references by any chance?

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Jormundgard]

Sorry, I meant chlorine molecules (Cl2). Once they're hit with radiation (which they easily do, even in the lower atmosphere), then they become free ions, and usually end up latching onto whatever they can find (probably HCl, but I don't know for sure).

But you're definitly right that the CFCs are broken down by radiation ("decay" was definitly a bad word to use), but they usually don't do so until they're well into the equatorial wind cycle, at which point the main byproducts (HCl and some other big chemical) are en route to the arctic ozone.

Unfortunately, this is pushing the extent of my knowledge, so I should probably defer to others who know more about it at this point :).

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[default luser]

Its not only the science of the environment but the science of history that has magically appeared in the last century. Never before have we been so interested in reaching more than qualatative conclusions about the past, and in this last century the huge push for recordkeeping and measurement has left us with more numbers than we can handle. We've barely had accurate thermometers and weather measuring methods for two centuries, and we barely have a century of accurate records. Who are we to define trends of a chaotic system based on 30 years of human action? Global Warming, Pollution...they won't destroy the earth, but it sure as hell could kill humans ( or atleast lower their overall quality of life ). Can't have that now, can we?

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

Not only that, we're foolishly growing food instead of feeding the dead back to ourselves as a complete, workable replacement to farming because we're "squeamish".

We should rename the product and call it something innocuous, some fake name that sounds like it's based on soy beans, and is green and good for the environment.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> There is no way to isolate the variables. We'll simply never know.

We'll simply go "whew!" and pat ourselves on the back that we prevented an obvious problem detected with 10 years of data on a planet with century, millenia, and eon-based weather cycles.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> I guess it's been about 25 [since CFC ban]? So I
> guess this is about when one would start to notice
> the effects (of a shrinking hole.)

Wrong! It takes 50 years for CFC's to get up there, so we can expect 25 more years of worsening conditions before dreaming of seeing it lessen.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> In any case, as far as practical approaches,
> erring on the side of caution would be a prudent
> one.

Or would it?

> The picture of onerous environmental
> regulations as an unbearable crippling burden is
> a smokescreen thrown up by industry.

It's the death of a thousand cuts. If a thousand and one tiny Peg Bundies eating bonbons sit on your back as you lumber along, causing the economy to limp as if by heavy handed socialism or communism, then the effects will be the same, too.

Ironically, if the science is true, this is one legitimate function of the government. It's the 999 spotted owls and friends that cause the real problems.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[shawb]

Actually, CFCs are made in nature. There are types of seaweed which make them as a poison to prevent animals from eating them. Oh... and they are found along the shores of antarctica. I don't have the paper here, but I have a reference to it at home.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> Global Warming, Pollution...they won't destroy the
> earth, but it sure as hell could kill humans ( or
> atleast lower their overall quality of life ).

Kill? Doubtful. Lower quality of life? Very doubtful. Lower quality of life more than the combined effects of massive environmental regulation? Completely wrong.

Re:Problem with Environmental Theories

[CaptainCarrot]

My information was from dead tree publications, so I had to do a little Google search here to turn up something on the web. The positions of the continents can be reconstructed at any period in history here. An elementary reference on paleoclimates can be found here. That last site appears to require IE to view all available features.

The voice of disonance

[Jingle Returno]

Thus, the issue of whether the global ozone layer shows a steadily depleting trend is still controversial.

Taken right from the essay. Although I would agree with you in that I'm not totally convinced on the issue of 'ozone layer depletion' either, it is interesting to see that this article begins with a scientific basis of 'the uncertainty' of research on ozone layer cause and effect and quickly progresses to the fact that it costs lots of money to phase out 'potential' ozone depleting chemicals and whether or not it is in the US's interest to stay in potentially expensive environmental pacts.

I think one of the key things that we have come to realize at the end of this century is that many of the large scale phenomena we witness here on Earth are the products of an extremely complex and often non-linear series of events. Our technology has reached the point where it can and often does cause serious changes to our environment. One of the problems with the point of view that this essay takes is that it neglects 'precaution' in favour of the idea that we should be more concerned with short term economical gain.

If something has the potential to possibly cause damage, isn't it more logical to stop using it? Even if we are only right 1 in 10 times on whether something can cause damage to the environment, I would rather waste the money controlling the nine than sweeping the one under the rug.

Re:The voice of disonance

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> One of the problems with the point of view that
> this essay takes is that it neglects 'precaution'
> in favour of the idea that we should be more
> concerned with short term economical gain.

A thousand needless regulations adds up to massive economic slowdown.

> Even if we are only right 1 in 10 times on
> whether something can cause damage to the
> environment, I would rather waste the money
> controlling the nine than sweeping the one under
> the rug.

Run two planets in parallel, one with this idea, one that is very skeptical about environmental regulations, and in two hundred years, one will be a hundred and seventy years ahead of the other in technology, wealth, and standard of living.

And here is the key point economists understand and environmentalists don't. It will be ahead at every single stage of the game.

Great, that's what G.W.Bush needs to hear =)

[veddermatic]

"See, fuck the environment, it just fixes itself! That Alaskan Wildlife thingie my dad and Uncle Cheney say I should let thier companies drill in will be all wildlifey again in no time!"

Oh well. Luckily the world will end AFTER I'm dead.

Re:Great, that's what G.W.Bush needs to hear =)

[Digitalia]

You forget that Bush only made it into Harvard because of Papa Bush's intimate ties with the school. Hell, his father was a Skull and Bonesman for gods' sakes. Couple this with his father's position as head of the CIA at the time and you're pretty much guaranteed of getting into Harvard.

And alot of good that business degree did, too. Look up the Bush family financial (mis)dealings online someday. There's more fraud and deceit than just Neal has been party too, I'll tell you. We're talking shell companies, SEC violations and the whole twenty yards.

Of course, I'd have taken John McCain over either one of them, too. I sincerely hope he tries running again next year and that the party doesn't just automatically give the party nomination to Bush. McCain is a very strong politician who is truly Republican. He cares about our rights and he doesn't care whether we're Satan worshipping Sodomites slowly slipping away to Hell.

Re:Great, that's what G.W.Bush needs to hear =)

[krlynch]

I realize you didn't want G.W. Bush elected, but you ought to get your facts straight when criticizing him and his family, since your errors make you look like an idiot to those who are more informed:

• G.H.W. Bush went to YALE.
  
• The next presidential election is NOT next year; elections are every FOUR years, and the next one will not be until 2004.
  
• Whether or not John McCain cares about your rights has no bearing on whether or not G.W. Bush cares about your rights; your implication is unsupported by any argument that you have made. In particular, you might want to go look up some of the legislation McCain has supported ... your assertion that "he doesn't care whether we're Satan worshipping Sodomites" looks pretty silly comparison to some of his positions ...
  

Re:Great, that's what G.W.Bush needs to hear =)

[nomadic]

I realize you didn't want G.W. Bush elected, but you ought to get your facts straight when criticizing him and his family, since your errors make you look like an idiot to those who are more informed:

G.H.W. Bush went to YALE.


The original poster said Bush got a business degree from Harvard; he did. Nowhere did the poster state that it was an undergraduate degree.

Re:Great, that's what G.W.Bush needs to hear =)

[Digitalia]

First, Bush, like many politicians, has attended numerous institutes of education. Starting out at Phillips Academy for prep, going to Yale for undergrad work and finally going to Harvard. Your mistake. My mistake was in blurring the two in my mention of the Skull and Bones organization.

The statement "next year" was a slip in speech on my part, not a slip in knowledge. Had I proofed my statement, and actually cared as much about this forum as you, I'd have caught that.

Finally, I await your showing me the anti-Satanist Sodomites legislation McCain's backed. Just prove it, buddy. I dare ya to refute my assertion that he has never promoted the crackdown on Satan worshipping Sodomites.

not in USA Time?

[Frothy Walrus]

is it a coincidence that the USian Time wouldn't carry that story, and there's no mention of this on NOAA's site?

it doesn't sit right with me.

Re:not in USA Time?

[Art Tatum]

Yep, probably a coincidence when you consider that Time is about as far to the Left as Trotsky.

Press Release

[ukryule]

is at http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2001/oct 01/noaa01104.html.

To summarise the findings, it seems the density of Chlorine from CFCs has peaked, and it is expected the Ozone hole will gradually (i.e. over the next 50 years!) disappear.

It now seems to be an interesting case of us screwing up our environment, working out what we'd done, and fixing it. However, you could consider that we just 'got lucky':

• The fact that it was concentrated in one spot meant that the problem was identified before we'd managed to strip the whole atmosphere of ozone.
• It was concentrated over the least populated part of the globe. Compare the increase in awareness/incidence of skin cancer in Australia/New Zealand with what might have happened if it was concentrated around the equator.
• The solution (banning CFCs) had relatively little economic impact making it easily implementable. It was also a universally accepted solution.

Compare this with the current situation re global warming, and this looks less like a successful victory and more like a warning shot across the bows ...

Re:Press Release

[linatux]

considering CFC's were largely phased out before we knew about an ozone hole, I would say neither luck nor good management had anything to do with it.

Re:Press Release

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to make two counter-points:

1. If the hole HAD been over the equator (I know, it couldn't have been), you can bet there would have been a lot more pressure to do something, and quick. It would have brought home to the world how much damage we can do to ourselves through capricious pollution. Millions of third-world people affected with a deadly, lingering, and expensive-to-treat disease would have been a rude awakening. Then again, HIV in Africa is effectively ignored by the media, so maybe I'm wrong on this one.

2. There wasn't a lot of support for banning CFCs early on in the campaign. Prince Charles was mocked for his stand against them. The same people who claim that deforestation/carbon output/industrial pollution is no big problem now claimed that all this anti-CFC stuff was nonsense, bad science, and hippy-talk. It took actual observations of the hole by Antarctic researchers, solid backing by environmental scientists, and popular support before things got changed.

I don't think things have changed much, so I don't take this news as any sign that we've changed our thinking. Too many people have an interest in making a quick buck at the expense of future quality of life on this planet.

Re:Press Release

[buglord]

I read a nice article (not sure if was on slashdot), that banning chlorine will be more damagin in the long run.

Because chlorine is an industrial by-product of many different chemical processes, it has to get gotten rid of somehow. Thus chlorine gas in warfare, cfc's in spray cans, pvc plastics - it's cheap!

So now the chlorine has to get bound in other materials and will pose an environmental threat some hundreds pf years later.

Maybe we should take a look at the processes having chlorine as a waste product and try and do them more environmentally-friendly

Re:Press Release

[frankie]

I read a nice article (not sure if was on slashdot)

Danger! Danger, Will Robinson! Moderators, please do not Not NOT mark a comment "Informative" if it makes a scientific claim without providing any hard links to back it up.

A quick google search, for example, led me to several potentially informative web sites, such as:

• European Chlorine industry association
• American Chlorine industry association
• an anti-Chlorine lobbying group
• Women's Environmental Network

etc, etc, etc. Don't just spout off random crap that you think you heard once.

Google means never having to say "I don't remember".

Re:Press Release

[The Panther!]

Jane, you ignorant slut.

From what I've read, it's had very very little to do with any chemicals we were using, but the unusual amount of volcanic eruptions in the 70's and 80's, contributed almost entirely to the amount of chlorine in the atmosphere and causing the hole.

It's quite likely this hole phenomenon has happened countless times in the past, and there just weren't any reactionary humans around to make a big fuss over it.

At the expense of good air conditioning

[Powercntrl]

Back in '92 (I believe - not sure), most new air conditioners started being manufactured with CFC-free refrigerants. The "new" coolant requires different tolerances in the compressor and evaporator systems. What this means (as anyone who has tried to retrofit an older car air conditioner with CFC-free coolant can tell you) is that the new coolant doesn't work as well in older systems. This has actually created a black market for the older coolant (freon, as I recall) from countries where it is still manufactured.

If this research is correct, the coolant switchover and strict rules regarding the recovery of waste freon have probably played a part in the improvement. Even if this is an inconvience for auto A/C mechanics, it's a small price to pay to preserve our valuable ecosystem.

So if you're driving an older car and your recharged air conditioner doesn't seem as cold as you remember it, you're right. But you're helping save the enviorment.

Re:At the expense of good air conditioning

[Safety Cap]

So if you're driving an older car ... you're helping save the enviorment.

Um... don't older cars get worse gas mileage than modern ones (especially the hybrid beasts with their 65+ mpg), therefore are more damaging to the environment?

Isn't that like flicking your cigarette butt out the car window so your ashtray doesn't get full?

Re:At the expense of good air conditioning

[Asic Eng]

I think what he may be referring to, is the fact that cars require a lot of energy to produce.

So the environmental impact of replacing a working car is: impact of building new car - (impact of running new car - impact of running old car).

How that works out, would depend on how long you run the car, how much you drive and a whole lot of other factors.

Re:At the expense of good air conditioning

[twinpot]

fuel consumption is only one part of the overall energy/pollution equation. We'd probably be better off being able to fit new power plants and more efficient transmission systems to existing cars.

Greenies prattle on about electric (and current hybrids) forgetting one of the major parts of the cars' make-up that is quite toxic - the batteries, which need to be changed on a fairly regular basis.

BTW, there are quite a few "standard" European cars that get comparable mileage and better performance than the Prius/Insight, and are far cheaper.

Re:At the expense of good air conditioning

[Emnar]

Actually, many people think that freon was banned because DuPont's patent was about to expire.

134a, the very-widely-used replacement chemical, is also a DuPont chemical -- and the pantent is much newer!

Another article, and my 2 cents...

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY]

More info on the same subject.

Every time I hear someone talk about the ozone hole that we (humans) are creating, I have a little laugh to myself. I mean, seriously... Human beings populate such an insanely small percentage of the Earth's surface (I mean, far less than half is even land anyway), how can you believe that we could really have such an immediate (read: 80 years) impact on something like the global climate? Come on, I think that's getting just a little bit of a big head... We wish we could control the weather...

Re:Another article, and my 2 cents...

[nysus]

I hate to burst your bubble of scientific evidence but the percentage of physical SPACE humans take up has no direct correlation to how much damage we might/might not be having on the weather.

Re:Another article, and my 2 cents...

[Cato the Elder]

Ahh, false humility.

Sure, human beings populate only a small bit of the Earth's surface (and an even smaller portion of its volume). An atom bomb takes up very little space vis a vis the area it destroys, or a virii in the hosts they kill.

You should take a look at a photo of Earth from space, at night. See all the glowing splotches? Those are human cities, pumping light into space. We know how to leave a mark.

Oh, sure, we can't "control" the weather. That doesn't mean we don't influence it. It takes a lot less skill to wreck a car than to drive it well.

Re:Another article, and my 2 cents...

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> Sounds like your three-legged stool is only bipedal.

Worse, yet. The stool's upside down, and when he sings the praises of environmentalism, believes his beautiful, magical castrato voice comes from the gods.

.

Re:Another article, and my 2 cents...

[Rasta Prefect]

Hmmm...we couldn't possbily have an effect on global climate, could we? Hell, theres two guys on the planet who could change the climate in about half an hour if they wanted too.....

ahh, the news

[subnet533]

This was reported in the USA Today over a year ago, does the news really travel that slow?

Re:ahh, the news

[Monkeychunks]

Well, it did have to travel all the way to Ireland... And us Micks can be a slow breed anyway. =)

Re:The Ozone Enigma

[c_jonescc]

Low altitude ozone is BAD. O3 is a poison, and it won't travel up high all by itself. It is easy to make, but placing it high up is costly, and the pollutants from the fuel required to get the junk up there would likely cancel any gain we could make. I don't know where to find an actual calculation of a pollution to ozone reproduction ratio, but I bet you can find one in on the EPA web page. Then again, I could be wrong about everything.

Lewis Black

[QuiK_ChaoS]

In the great words of Lewis Black:

"We've got rockets, we've got plastic wrap... Fix it!"

It will NEVER disappear

[javaDragon]

because it hase NEVER appeared due to human activity. The ozone "layer" exists because there is oxygen in our atmosphere, and ozone creation is the continuously ongoing result of the solar UV. The southern "hole" is simply due to a few factors, such as the antartic vortex, which insulates Antartic continent from the rest of the atmosphere during the night (i.e. from april to november). There has been no measure of the ozone layer "width" in the past prior to the "discovery" of the "hole". This is total bullshit. Now a little question : when did the patents on CFC expired ? When did the worldwide campaign against CFC begin ? When did the so-called "replacement" product to CFC patent will end ? Who own(ed) the patents ?

Re:It will NEVER disappear

[nysus]

EXCELLENT post. I didn't know all this.

Thanks for straightening me out. I knew all those scientists were making this shit up to get more funding from the government.

One other thing: can you please post some reputable scientific sources for your conclustion?

Where has this been proved ?

[javaDragon]

Where is the evidence of the increase of human skin cancers due to "ozone hole" ?

Re:Where has this been proved ?

[f00k_Krm]

Where is the evidence of the increase of human skin cancers due to "ozone hole" ?

Check cancer rates between Pennsylvania, USA and Sydney, Australia. I know this is far from a bulletproof arguement, for maybe Aussies are naturally more prone to skin cancer, or spend more time outdoors (which they do), or they use a sunblock which mutates them into sun cancer prone mutant freaks. But the (abeit weak) arguement some people say is that in the land down under there is mommothian awareness of skin cancer, everyone uses sun block, hats and that disgusting blue crap you put on your nose, there are advertisements all the time for sun awareness (remember that egg me no fry ad? Yes!), and here in the good old US of A we suffice with those annoying no-life weather channel dorks to tell us to put on a hat. I have lived in both countries for a decent (over 4 years) amount of time and the amount of people here in the US who care about skin cancer is miniscule compared to Aust. Yet (and the reason for that) rates are still higher down there. We are both about on the +/-40 degree latitude mark. This evidence is circumstantial at best but I'm sure someone else can post up a more scientific explanation for it (please?)

Just what I think, thats all

Re:Where has this been proved ?

[Kharny]

What?? There is plenty of evidence.
Gamma rays mutate cells, causing cancer.
The ozone layer stops a part of the gamma rays.
No ozone, more gamma, more cancer.

Re:Where has this been proved ?

[TheSync]

Check cancer rates between Pennsylvania, USA and Sydney, Australia. I know this is far from a bulletproof arguement, for maybe Aussies are naturally more prone to skin cancer, or spend more time outdoors (which they do)

Or maybe the Aussies and the NZers killed/displaced the reasonably dark skinned people who were properly adapted for living there, replacing them with light-skinned northern europeans...

Re:Where has this been proved ?

[f00k_Krm]

Or maybe the Aussies and the NZers killed/displaced the reasonably dark skinned people who were properly adapted for living there, replacing them with light-skinned northern europeans...

yeah :(
one of the more appalling parts of human history...

Re:Where has this been proved ?

[-Harlequin-]

Where is the evidence of the increase of human skin cancers due to "ozone hole" ?

Speaking from personal experience, and speaking of the experiences of other people I know, you sunburn sooo fast in New Zealand, compared to hotter, sunnier, more northery countries, it's scary. If you accept that there is a link between sunburn and skin-cancer, the dreadfull ease of getting burned when under the ozone hole should constitute evidence.

If you don't accept any link between sunburn and cancer, you're probably the sort of person that the PR department of BiocideCorp Chemicals Inc would love to hire... :-)

(I currently live at about the same latitude north as I did latitude south when in New Zealand. The sun is just different. It doesn't have the same sting in it - you can feel the difference).

Re:Where has this been proved ?

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

And of course he's carefully accounted for the general increase in sun bathing over the past 20, 30, 40 years as outfits got skimpier and skimpier and people got insaner and insaner in getting darker.

It would be like trying to correlate UV exposure with obesity and heart disease, with the ever-growing amounts of cheaper and cheaper meats, and greasier, cheaper fast foods.

Because sun bathing would be several orders of magnitude more important, so he's got to be careful.

And he is, right?

Right?

Re:Where has this been proved ?

[Morbid Curiosity]

Or maybe the Aussies and the NZers killed/displaced the reasonably dark skinned people who were properly adapted for living there, replacing them with light-skinned northern europeans...

British colonial forces in New Zealand were far from saintly. There were needless lives lost. There were people cheated. There were those who never bothered to find out about the culture they were living alongside, causing friction, suffering and loss on both sides. There was a law against Maori people speaking their own language in schools at one point, as part of an attempt at cultural assimilation. That's not something the country is proud of. Still, at least they didn't put bounties on the native population and attempt to wipe them out in the scale of places like Tasmania.

Maori weren't all bright happy peaceful people before the nasty British came along. There were a lot of warring tribes, though many coexisted relatively peacefully. There was occasional cannibalism, and widespread slavery. So it's not like any one ethnicity has clean hands. The same could be said of anywhere in the world.

The Maori are still here. The Europeans are now here too. A lot of Maori are a lighter-skinned now, due to intermarriage with Pakeha (Europeans). Maori get skin cancer too, y'know. And in higher rates than they used to. The hole in the ozone layer has a very real effect.

New Zealand is in a temperate area, with only the northernmost regions in the subtropical zone. My city is on a complementary latitude to places like Chicago and Seattle. Do the weather reports in Chicago warn that there's a "burn time of 10 minutes" or whatever, throughout most of summer?

The science of the ozone hole

[ukryule]

A good description of the process which results in the ozone hole can be found here.

Basically, the intense cold of an antarctic winter creates a vortex which isolates the air over the south pole, and allows build up of the CFCs. When the summer comes, the Chlorine from the CFCs acts as a catalyst to destroy the ozone.

It now seems to be well understood - but it's one of those things that nobody could have predicted before it happened.

I don't get something...

[sconeu]

I thought that weather patterns tend to not cross the equator...

If that's true (and even if it's not), why is the ozone hole over the ANTARCTIC? Aren't most of the CFC/ozone-eating gases being emitted in the NORTHERN HEMISPHERE? Why isn't there one over the arctic?

Re:I don't get something...

[radja]

weather patterns may or may not cross the equator. I have no idea. but spreading weather patterns is something entirely different then dispersing a gas worldwide. The weather patterns are made of dynamic stuff like wind.

//rdj

Re:I don't get something...

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple reason....

Take a look at a map of the Arctic and the Antarctic, they are in fact almost exact opposites. The Arctic is a almost circular sea surrounded (almost) by land, roughly centred on the pole. The Antarctic is a high, near circular continent, roughly centred on the pole, surrounded by sea.

The main effect of this difference is that the Antarctic geography allows a stable polar vortex, which isolates the Antarctic atmosphere during the polar winter, allowing the upper atmosphere in particular to become very cold. The nastiness in the Ozone equilibria happens during the spring when this extremely cold upper atmosphere is irradiated by the sun.

The Arctic has a much weaker polar vortex, and hence, although ozone depletion is seen, it is much weaker.

Re:I don't get something...

[shking]

There IS an ozone hole over the Arctic. Due to different weather patterns it is a bit smaller than the one over the Antarctic. The ozone holes grow every every spring and shrink later in the year. The reason you're hearing about the southern ozone hole is that it's spring in the southern hemisphere. The reason you're not hearing about the northen hole is that spring is 6 months away in the northern hemispere.

maybe it's not reducing

[TomK32]

because they used some NASA program to calculate the size and mixed miles with kilometers....
the hole is everywhere

no self regulation !

[serlo]

the potential recovery of the ozone hole is
due to the world wide reduction of CFCs.

It is not mother earth recovering itself !!!

It is not clear however, whether the global warming
could stop the recovery, since the warming
of the lower levels in the atmosphere is
connected to a cooling in the stratosphere.
This cooling enhances the desctruction of ozone.

Strange

[socceroo]

I live in Melbourne. If you look at the piccies of the hole, you'll see it nowhere near approaches Melbourne.

I have to use sunscreen when I go outside. I've got fair complexion and I burn up in the sun. Yet when I visit Sydney, I can spend 2 hours in the sun without as much getting a lick from sunburn.

You have to wonder what the situation is like in Hobart or Antartica.

Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I understand, CFC's are no worse than the chemicals that replaced them. As I understand it, Some company had a patent on the substance used as a delivery mechanism in aerosol sprays... but their patent was about to run out on one of their most widespread chemical products, losing them lots of money.

So, what would anybody who knows they can buy off the people with a nice environmental scare do?

They spread a massive chunk of propaganda and toss out some lobbyists. Meanwhile, they develop a product that is almost identical to the original, and just as bad for the environment (reactively).

So, now nothing has changed for the good or bad of the environment, but that company got to remain the exclusive source of chemicals for spray cans.

Always get hard data!

[Savage-Rabbit]

From the very beginning of this whole Greenhouse/ozone scare there has been:

A near complete lack of proof for the fact that humans are causing either.

No shortage of people claiming that humanity is more or less solely to blaim.

I do not think anyone can argue with the fact that human generated pollution is not helping but given the complete absence of long term data on the development of the Ozone layer the Ozone gap could (I am not saying it is just that it could) just as well be an natural phenomenon. Which is what responsible scientist have been saying from the very beginnin. So this development should not be all that suprising. But then serious science seems always to get gagged by the rhetoric of fanatical enviromentalism and conservative politics just like those few brave souls that blasphemed by suggested climate change happens rapidly over a few hundred years or even less and not over tens of thousands of years or even less time after analysing the results of the Greenland glacier ice core drillings. And that perhaps humanity is only contributing to/accelerating a climate change and not casusing it. Perhaps the stiffnecked Conservatives and the Treehuggers alike should let scientist do their work and not use their work for mudslinging before it has even produced definitive results.

This is probably redundant already..

[D Anderson n'Swaart]

..but I thought I'd throw in my 2c (0.8c US) as someone living in New Zealand. Although the ozone hole does affect South Africa, where I moved to New Zealand from, the problem is definitely worse in the Land of Sheep(tm). The sun is more intense, even late in the afternoon, and I find that while the shade is a good indicator of the real air temperature, I get much hotter in the sun than I did in South Africa, despite the fact that air temperatures average around 5 C cooler.

Just as a flame-worthy side note, there is a lot of antagonism in New Zealand towards the US because of Bush's decision to boycott the Kyoto(sp?) Protocol. The United States is demonstrably by far the worse offender with carbon dioxide emissions, and the general consenus in the scientific community is that these emissions are causing, or at least accelerating the hole in the ozone layer. To be honest, Usians aren't the most popular people (as a society, not individuals--I personally have met several and they were wonderful people), and this is just one more straw on the proverbial and cliched camel's back, with the United States saying what is effectively "Stuff you, we'll do what we want and who cares about your ozone hole causing rising skin cancer and medical costs".

I didn't mean that as a flame, just a point of view. I'd rather you respond than just mod me down...I'm aware that I am oversimplifying it; this is merely the general trend of thinking in Kiwiland.

Re:This is probably redundant already..

[Greyfox]

I doubt Bush will do anything. Personally, one of the first things I'd have done after the Sept. 11 attacks was sign a huge increase in alternative energy funding (Actually I'd have done it before that) with the goal of getting fusion working well in the next 20 years or so and also with the goal of every American driving a hydrogen powered vehicle by 2015. Would have killed several birds with one stone. Mandatory emission standards have resulted in much cleaner cities here, though, and to get a feel for that all you have to do is visit someplace like Romania, where despite the far fewer number of vehicles on the road, it's still fucking hard to breathe the air. Most people don't seem to notice though, since everyone smokes. Outside you're sucking in diesel fumes and inside you're sucking in secondhand smoke.

Re:This is probably redundant already..

[mperrin]

Just as a flame-worthy side note, there is a lot of antagonism in New Zealand towards the US because of Bush's decision to boycott the Kyoto(sp?) Protocol.

Yes well. There's a fair amount of antagonism to Bush about it up here, too, especially from those of us who (a) didn't vote for him, and (b) don't think he actually won the election. I personally make a great effort to "live green" even if it involves some personal sacrifice (spending more $$ to buy environment-friendly products, etc) and I wish our semi-elected leadership was willing to do the same.

You're absolutely right, it's a damn shame Bush is telling everybody else to shove off about Kyoto. I only hope the rest of the world is strong enough to say "screw you!" right back at him and keep on implementing the treaty. I firmly believe you guys are doing the right thing, and I know many other Americans do too...

Re:This is probably redundant already..

[Monkeychunks]

"Personally, one of the first things I'd have done after the Sept. 11 attacks was sign a huge increase in alternative energy funding".

And if a commonsense approach to environmental issues wasn't enough of a reason, consider the possibility of a future terrosist attack on one of the US' many nuclear power facilities. Let's face it, supposed increases in security since Spetember 11th have been total flops...

You all know why Lego make Duplo for the smaller children, right? =)

Re:This is probably redundant already..

[TheSync]

Hydrogen vehicles are probably never going to happen. Even the best metal hyrdride storage has an energy density of under 1 kWh/kg whereas gasoline has 12.7 kWh/kg. Liquid H2 has a larger energy density per kg than gasoline, but takes up four times more volume for equal energy, not including cryogenic devices.

There is some hope for gasoline powered fuel cells, but I wouldn't be too hopeful here.

At the end of the day, oil is too concentrated and convenient to be ignored. And because the Middle East is where it is cheapest to produce oil from, they will always rule the global commodity price, and will influence the price of all energy products.

Re:This is probably redundant already..

[krlynch]

Last I checked, Bush obtained a majority of the votes in the Electoral College; hence, he won the election. Furthermore, the recounts in Florida by the news outlets down there have (last I saw) shown rather conclusively that his electors in Florida won a plurality of votes, contrary to the claims of the Gore-Lieberman campaign.

Furthermore, on the issue of the Kyoto treaty, the Clinton-Gore administration had many years during which to push the Kyoto treaty through the Senate to ratification, and didn't even try. Perhaps you ought to direct some of your displeasure toward them instead of toward an administration that is doing exactly what it said it would do during the campaign?

Re:This is probably redundant already..

[krlynch]

there is a lot of antagonism in New Zealand towards the US because of Bush's decision to boycott the Kyoto(sp?) Protocol.

Perhaps, then, you could convince the government of New Zealand to advocate a protocol treaty that, unlike Kyoto,

• has an enforcement mechanism
  
• doesn't exclude the vast majority of nations from its provisions
  
• doesn't expect the US to pay an amount disproportionate to our environmental impact,
  and
  
• deals comprehensively with the issue of global warming instead of dealing piecemeal with one emission at a time.
  

Personally, while I am not convinced that the science has shown that there is or will be human induced global warming, I don't see that there is any long term negative impact from addressing what might be a huge problem. In the long run, even if there is no real danger of global warming, it would be to our economic benefit to have cleaner burning, more efficient vehicles, and lower emissions from power plants. I would love for there to be an international treaty that really makes an impact on pollution and emissions globally. But the Kyoto treaty is not going to have any real environmental impact long term, will cost an incredible amount in terms of cash and jobs up front, is not enforceable, is not manageable, is not extensible, and is really nothing more than a feel good measure for politicians to wave in front of their populations to say "see, we're doing something". I'm glad the US backed out without ratifying the treaty; I hope that by staying out, we force a reevaluation of the initial goals of Kyoto, and that we eventually end up with a comprehensive treaty that results in a cleaner environment for the future. But Kyoto is fundamentally broken and is certainly not the way to get there

Re:This is probably redundant already..

[D Anderson n'Swaart]

This post demonstrates well what I meant when I commented that the media loves to pontificate on the opinions of the people involved with an issue, and what has already been said, but fails to do any real research of its own to attempt to put the situation in an objective light (as is its duty as far as I am concerned).

I read a fair amount of coverage on the Kyoto treaty, mostly from BBC News which I consider a fairly reputable news source, and yet they told me virtually nothing about it that allowed me to form a reasonable and balanced opinion. What they did tell me was that a bunch of scientists were saying it was a Very Good Thing(TM). They attempted to demonstrate why it was a Very Good Thing, but they didn't try to demonstrate why it might be Not a Good Thing(TM). They just told me that Bush's scientists had advised him to stay clear, and then rambled on about how other countries were seeing this as typical Usian money-comes-firsting. This, of course, had the effect of leading one to believe that this was the case without actually having to report it as fact.

For all I know, the parent poster may be trolling, but I feel inclined to believe he is very likely right. However, both myself and many others have formed opinions on the Kyoto treaty based on what can best be described as poor reporting, and subsequently the United States' image suffers, and a huge cycle of people becoming opinionated, speaking to other people, who in turn propogate the cycle of inaccurate information, begins. We think we're well informed, but we're not. And how do you break the cycle? Inform people. And who should be doing it? The media. Fucking brilliant.

(As an aside, I find The Register to be a great source of tech news because of their reputation for cynicism. Sometimes it can be counter-productive, but generally it results in much more balanced reporting (although bear in mind that you need an irony and personal-flaming filter) because, rather than following the leader, they play Devil's Advocate.)

CO2 |= ozone depletion

[xX_sticky_Xx]

CO2 is responsible for global warming, not ozone depletion.

CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and some other gases like halon(tm?) are responsible for the thinning ozone. Most of these gases have been banned under the Montreal protocol for some years now, but because they are largely inert they can rise far into the stratosphere (which takes them quite a few years) where they do their damage. What happens up there is that the suns intense UV rays break the CFC molecules up and the chlorine ends up binding with an oxygen atom from the ozone. The actual reaction is here

CO2, on the other hand, absorbs infrared radiation from the earth reradiated from sunlight and keeps the heat in the atmosphere. It basically acts like a big blanket. CO2 is what the Kyoto Protocol is trying to limit.

Re:CO2 |= ozone depletion

[D Anderson n'Swaart]

Disclaimer: since this is a blatantly off-topic post, I have already modded myself down (no +1 bonus). Hopefully this is an intelligent enough post that those nice cracked-out modders will find some more worthy flamebait or trolling.

You're right, of course. I hadn't thought this through very thoroughly, which was why I was careful to state that it was the trend of thinking in New Zealand, rather than my own opinion. As with many things in New Zealand (GE food being a major one), the good old Green Party uses ignorance and fud to spread misinformation, which turns into zealotry and close-mindedness much more easily than reasoned facts and rational evidence. It's amazing how many New Zealanders have nearly no conception of the real facts and information behind the issues they hold such vehement opinions on, and how they don't even question the emotive positions they take from those who should know better. Not that this is a New Zealand-specific thing; as long as humans are human this will continue to be the case.

Every time I see mass demonstrations against GE food I wish that the media would actually inform people on the issue instead of simply commentating on the opinions that different parties hold. I guess that's one reason I'm studying journalism next year...

Completely off-topic, I know. Sorry.

Getting back (vaguely) to ozone holes etc, another poster mentioned the need for alternate energy sources. I figured I'd reply in this post; basically I couldn't agree more. It would make a decent difference to the global warming problem (at least if we believe the majority of the scientists involved in the study thereof), it would probably make some impact on the ozone hole problem (although this seems to be improving, probably due to such things as the Montreal Protocol), it would wean Usia off oil long before shortage became a problem (and this would probably quickly expand to the rest of the first world), and it would also ensure that premature shortage due to tensions in the Middle East wouldn't cause as much damage as is potentially possible. It would probably also lead to a number of offshoot technological and scientific advances that may otherwise not happen for many years yet.

Frankly (and once again completely ot), I think there's basically only one thing in Bush's little brain. Money. And unfortunately, he's not smart enough to think long-term money either. Oh, and anyone wanting to flame me for "flaming" Bush...just think of all the speeches he has muffed. One of the speeches he made directly after the 11.09 attacks left me cringing as he completely screwed up a relatively common English word, then did it again, then corrected himself, and then did it again. Not the mark of a superior intellect to me.

The problem is, if the US doesn't lead the world in the adoption of alternate energy, cleaner-burning fuels etc, who will? Other countries still make the attempt, but the US is the world's most powerful economy by far. We need them if this is going to work.

US regs

[steveheath]

Has/will the US actually start regulating against polluants? I believe (may be wrong) that the US regulations are the most lax in the developed world (particularly wrt cars). Do the american ppls actually care about this issue? Will this news create more apathy? Will America continue to be the dirty old man of the developed world?

Re:US regs

[bluGill]

I believe that the US regulations are the most lax in the developed world

Hmm.. perhaps you should research that, because I belive US regulations are the most strict. I know that there are cars in Europe that can't be sold in the US due to polution regulations (VW TDI gets about 100 hp in the US, same engine tuned different gets 150 hp in Europe, but cannot be sold in the US)

A recient trip to Spain revealed a lot of polution. It was impossibal to breath. Inside smokers were the problem, outside cars. In particular there were a lot of 2-cycle scooters running around pouring out polution.

Unfortunatly Europe is conposed of many different countries, so you can point out one country with tougher regulations and compare that to the US. California has the toughest regulations in the US, but that isn't a country so it doesn't count. (the word state in english means country)

Re:US regs

[twinpot]

Actually, in the US you get the old TDi motors, because your diesel fuel's sulphur (ok, sulfur) content is too high, not due to the 150bhp TDi being too dirty.

Current pollution regulations for cars are very similar across the EU/US, with the possible exception of California.

The Polar Vortex, that's why it's there

[dido]

I believe there's a meteorological phenomenon called the polar vortex that causes the ozone hole to occur at the South Pole and during Antarctic summer. See this link for more details. Short version is, during polar night there's a huge whirlpool of cold air that circulates there all night causing the CFC's we've emitted to more rapidly destroy the ozone in the region. By summer, the vortex stops, so the ozone hole disperses. There's also a vortex in the North Pole, but because there are a lot of irregular land masses there, the vortex up north is a lot weaker, hence the ozone hole up north is far smaller. But global warming is causing the northern vortex to strengthen, and hence increase the size of the hole up north.

This is what I get for watching too much Discovery Channel!

CO2, Global Warming, and Ozone Depletion

[dido]

I'll just point out a slight inaccuracy in your highly informative answer. CO2 increase in the atmosphere does directly relate to the ozone hole problem. CO2 increase causes global warming. Global warming causes the (presently) weak polar vortex in the North Pole to strengthen. Strengthening of that polar vortex causes the ozone hole in the northern hemisphere to increase in size. Well, many more people live in the land around in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere...

That's the thing with the environment; everything is interconnected.

Re:CO2, Global Warming, and Ozone Depletion

[Jormundgard]

Thanks - I'm dead-ignorant when it comes to CO2/sub effects :).

What about the NZ sheep?

[imrdkl]

I've heard there have been some, um, anomalies in the flocks. Are they growing wool again? How about the lamb-meat? Is it still tender and juicy from the prolonged basting? :-)

WTF?!?

[Juju]

So you believe more the people who make made money of using CFC than those "wacky environmentalist".
I understand that it is far more logic to believe reasearch financed by people who have a financial interrest in it, than people who believe there is a risk for health...

I myself, tend to believe more of the crackpot pseudoscience than the greedy bastard pseudoscience, thank you very much!

Besides, I don't think it costed billions, else I would bet that using alternatives would never have been implemented that fast!

The fact that the hole is peaking 10 years after we limited the use of CFC is rather a proof that they were right IMHO.

And you part about ice melting in the north pole is just so stupid! Global warming is a fact, the north pole is disapearing and water levels are rising. Look at statistics and ice studies...
Just keeping your head inside your arse will not make these problems go away.

There are evidences that we are destroying nature, look at the rivers! Now imagine the whole world polluting as the US and think at how long it would take for the world to become a dump!
T
he US citizens are not even one 20th of the world population but they manage to produce half the pollution. It's time for people to think ahead a bit and try to show a better example! Saying "no" to an international initiative to reduce emissions is not the best example the US could give to rising economies!

Re:WTF?!?

[bluGill]

Global warming is a fact,

True. But you can't forget the fact that global tempatures are currently lower then average. Leaving "the little ice age" (1200-1800) would account for global warming.

Of course the question is then is there are problem. I can't answer that. Everything feeds everything else. When we burn a drop of oil is affects how the trees grow and things like that. Forest fires are a significant cause of polution, and the well ment, but disasterious smokey the bear (Only you can prevent forest fires) program has ment that in the previous centry there were less of them. Volcanios when they errupt make up the large majority of the polution released that year.

So is there a problem or not? I can cite lots of facts. There is no way to know without controlled expiriments lasting for several million years. Even if we had the patience to see such a study through, we don't have the ability to construct several idenitical solar systems, complete with suns and planets, so we can't control the variables. Even if we could construct such systems we can't alter orbits of the planets at will, we can't prevent/cause solar flares, and we can't cause volcanos. (Even if we could, could we do it without introducing anouther variable?) Facts are easy, figgureing out what they mean is hard.

Re:WTF?!?

[Juju]

Ha ha ha!
You make me laugh!
Assume nothing...

Enf of discussion

Re:WTF?!?

[Juju]

What about refuting my arguments instead of doing stupid statements?

Re:WTF?!?

[Yet Another Smith]

I myself, tend to believe more of the crackpot pseudoscience than the greedy bastard pseudoscience, thank you very much!

If you believe pseudoscience, you're part of the problem. You see, it is likely that the changeover from CFC based systems to other systems did cost on the order of a billion dollars (that isn't that much, just 1 B2 bomber). Now if, in fact, we did not need to do so, that billion dollar hit to the economy could have been taken in an environmental area that was needed. So getting environmental science wrong is not helpful. The emotional environmentalists have done more to harm the environment than any single chemical manufacturer. My own case in point is the nuclear debate. Emotional environmentalists have pushed FUD tactics regarding nuclear power for some time. This has caused industrial nations to increase use of oil, coal, and hydro-electric systems, each of which have terrible environmental disadvantages of their own. Geologically, coal tends to be a trap for naturally occuring radiogenic compounds, and your average coal plant spews out more radioactive gasses than all the nuclear spills of all western reactors combined (clearly Chernobyl is a case apart), not to mention the tons and tons of CO2 that get tossed into the atmosphere. Hydro dams destroy habitat by the hundreds of square miles.

here are evidences[sic] that we are destroying nature, look at the rivers!

The US is hardly the worst polluter of riparian environments in the world. The clean water act has actually been very effective at cleaning the rivers. I heard a story by an entymologist I know at Clemson university who specializes in cadis flies and other aquatic insects as indicators of stream health. He'd developed standards of measurements for defining stream pollution throughout the southeastern US. He traveled to China to do some work there, and had to travel several hundred miles inland before he found environments that were healthy enough to even show up on his scale.

US citizens are not even one 20th of the world population but they manage to produce half the pollution.

This depend highly on how polution is defined. We are the largest producer of CO2, which was not considered a pollutant until fairly recently. In other respects, we've greatly reduced our environmental destruction. At the turn of the century, South Carolina was largely devoid of trees. Through conservation and forestry, that state has now recovered large tracts of forest land. Clearly this land is not as healthy as old-growth forest yet, but such things take time, and its doing better than one might think.

Also, it is the third world, the developing countries, that continue to use CFC depleting chemicals. For more details check out this article at ENN.

Now, I do believe that CFC reductions are largely responsible for the halting of growth in the ozone layer. It is true that ozone depletors remain active for quite some time. However, ozone is continuously being produced by incident radiation, and even if depletors are present in the atmosphere, ozone levels will quickly reach equilibrium once the amount of depleting agents stabilizes. We can expect a slow recovery, but we should expect to see stabilization quickly. This is precisely what is being reported.

Re:WTF?!?

[GB Kalis]

As far as global warming being a fact, I don't think that can be argued. Over the past century the average temperature has increased. But, it is known that temperatures naturally fluctuate. I don't see where there is enough evidence to show that global warming is caused by pollution or CFC's specifically.

Many scientists think that the hole in the ozone over the south pole is a naturally occuring phonomenon that has been there since long before we could detect it or the idustrial revolution started. I also think the question begs to be asked, if the hole in the ozone is caused by pollution, why is it over the south pole where there is NO pollution? Shouldn't it be over New England? or LA?

If you take a basic college level chemisty class, you learn that Ozone (O3) is created in a chemical reaction between oxygen (02) and water (H20). The only reactant required is heat. The heat from the sun causes 02 + H20 = O3 + H2 . Someone please double check me on that, it's been awhile since college chem.

So, if pollution is causing a hole in the ozone which is causing global warming, then global warming will cause more ozone to be produced. That is why I am not convinced that the hole in the ozone is caused by pollution. Rather, my theory is that the hole in the ozone is a naturally occuring phenomenon that is centered over the coldest part of the earth for a reason, ie there isn't as much heat to create ozone.

Re:WTF?!?

[Mr_Matt]

You're partly right...I suppose you can get ozone from a water reaction - except the highest concentrations of ozone occur in the mid-to-lower stratosphere, where there is very, very little water. The natural creation and destruction of ozone is a result of photodissociation of plain ol' diatomic oxygen - IIRC, the free-radical oxygen that occurs likes to bond preferentially with O2 molecules, thereby creating ozone. UV energy plays a role in this creation process (but I forgot the details :) Of course, UV radiation (of another wavelength) photodissociates ozone into O2 and free-radical O, leading to a fortuitous balance of ozone creation and dissociation. This changes, however, when you add a chemical reagent that acts as a catalyst to dissociate ozone.

Your theory about the ozone hole occurring over cold places is partially correct as well, except for the role that CFCs play in additional ozone depletion. With less sunlight (or no sunlight, as you'd see over a polar region in winter) you have less ozone creation. You also have less photodissociation of ozone, so the balance remains steady - until you introduce an aerosol agent that chemically dissociates ozone, such as a CFC. CFCs in polar stratospheric clouds act as catalysts in a heterogenous chemical reaction that also dissociates ozone - so you have one source, and two sinks. Hence, net ozone loss, and the ozone hole.

So you see, pollution (of CFCs at least) does deplete ozone - the reason we don't see ozone depletion over highly polluted areas (like LA) is because most of those pollutants are scavenged out by cloud systems before reaching the mid-stratosphere. Bad news for acid-rain, good news for local ozone. However, CFCs, which are notably tough, can survive the trip to the stratosphere, and will be advected a long ways away by the jet stream. What happens then? In the northern hemisphere, the jet stream meanders about pretty frequently - those CFCs stay pretty mixed and tend not to get too concentrated, and consequently do little damage to ozone. In the southern hemisphere, however, the polar front is defined by the Roaring 40's, and there exists a tight polar vortex, much tighter than in the northern hemisphere. Consequently, CFCs caught in the southern polar vortex are unable to escape, and will continue to concentrate and do more and more damage to the ozone population in the southern polar stratosphere.

That's the idea behind restricting CFC use - sure, CFCs will live in the atmosphere for 60 years or more, but by keeping further CFCs out of the atmosphere, we prevent further accumulation in the polar vortex, and allow natural mixing to reduce CFC content, however slowly that process occurs.

Re:WTF?!?

[Rick the Red]

There is no way to know without controlled expiriments lasting for several million years. Even if we had the patience to see such a study through, we don't have the ability to construct several idenitical solar systems, complete with suns and planets, so we can't control the variables.

That's what happens when you leave science to lay-folk. Any real scientist would tell you that your proposal is way too ambitious; the scope of your proposed experiment can be drastically reduced without adversly affecting the outcome. You don't need to build multiple solar systems for your control group, you just need to build multiple Earths, orbiting the one Sun. You have to admit that building multiple Earths is far easier than building multiple solar systems. I suggest you start with Venus, as the 2nd rock's pretty worthless except as a navigation device for sailors, it's about the right size, and it's already close to the desired orbit.

Of course, this guy might not like it...

Re:Ozone Hole

[ashtonb]

Easy to say.
Making ozone may be simple, but how do you recommend getting it to the correct altitude (it breaks down quickly at various altitudes below, and above, the actual ozone layer) and how do you disperse it thinly over 30 million sqaure killometers?

WOW... a really good conspiracy theory

[jonr]

We need more of those here on /.

The great thing about this...

[Saib0t]

is that, when we're out of fossil fuel to burn, it will decrease the polution levels drastically ;-)

Great

[andy_from_nc]

You know those fine men in Washington are going to use this as evidence that there is no need for tougher environmental laws. Not that they'll understand the difference between global warming or the ozone hole or what have you.

Can someone find this study and maybe post a link? Have there been any reports of corrolation between the reduction in the use of CFCs in many countries and the leveling off of the hole or was it a natural phenomenom after all.

To the guy in NZ who talked about the anamosity toward the US for backing out of the Kyoto treaty. We're all feeling very patriotic, but you please remember a majority of the folks in this country did NOT vote for Bush and co. We voted for a guy who thought (according to his book) Florida would be under water in a few years if we didn't do something about the environment! Didn't like either of them, but I vote a bit on the enviromental side with a strong streak of anti-relgious fundementalism. I think pulling out of the Kyoto treaty even if you DIDN'T agree with its premise was a mistake because it dishonored our country. We played a big part in setting the thing up then canceled at the last minute. For that I am truely sorry.

Unfortunately, due to recent events it will be a number of years before we'll pay a great deal of attention to the environmental problem. It may be a number of year before we link the gas prices with all of us buying SUV's that get 8 miles a gallon (not me!), but we will..hopefully before we melt the place.

-Andy

Re:Great

[Christianfreak]

You can't blame the goverment for this problem. I'm not going to get into the whole Bush vs. Gore issue, its over and what's done is done and complaining isn't going to change it- That said even if Gore were the president it wouldn't change a thing, people here still wouldn't care. We'd still be buying SUV's, they would still eat tons of fast food and throw the trash in a landfill, people still wouldn't be recycling anything.

All the regulations in the world aren't going to change people's attitudes, people's attitudes will change when American's stop being the greedy jerks that they are (and I'm an american so it isn't flamebait).

I agree with you but more government isn't the problem. Bush wants to drill in Alaska because we demand cheap oil. (and its a better solution that getting it from Sadaam). If Gore had been elected and did everything with the environment that he said he would do... he would be out in 4 years. Not to say that Bush won't be (although with our little war he stands a chance) but Gore wouldn't have stood up and done the stuff he promised, he would give in under the presure - just like everyone else....

Okay enough rant.

Re:Great

[yzquxnet]

It may be a number of year before we link the gas prices with all of us buying SUV's that get 8 miles a gallon (not me!), but we will..hopefully before we melt the place.

I've always gotten a kick out of people who use the whole SUV argument. It shows that they have a single track mind. Cars and SUV's are not the only fuel burning rigs out there. There is a huge trucking industry in the states. Don't think trucks don't burn a bit of fuel!. And there is also Heavy equipment, Trains, Planes, Ocean liners, etc. Puts a few little SUV's into perspective.

Also, those 8 mpg SUV's are few and far between. Last time I checked a lot of mid sized SUV's were not that far off from most mid sized cars. Here's something for you to think about to. The 6,000 lbs pickup with it's gas guzzling V-8 engine my dad drives gets better gas mileage than the 2.3L 4 banger engine in my car. Gasp!

Re:Great

[andy_from_nc]

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/consumer0614 00.asp
http://www.abqjournal.com/wheels/review03-23-00. ht m
http://www.alaskanautos.com/toyotasequoia2001.ht ml
http://www.epinions.com/content_11800710788

I used to have a subscription to consumer reports and at least for the 2000 model expedition they listed the MPG as 8.

Anyhow the point was not just SUVs but that we've all bought ridiculously large vehicles that guzzle fuel.

For perspective, out of my Miata I get > 30mpg. My next car will probably be a hybrid.

Re:Great

[andy_from_nc]

The point was Gore wouldn't have thumbed his nose up at the Kyoto treaty. My biggest problem with Bush in this and the Anti-ballistic missile treaty is that it does damage to our credibilty as a nation. Who'll sign treaties with us if we don't keep them? Its scary.

Yes I beleive properly alloted regulations would help. Tax gas guzzlers and pay a (bigger) refund to hybrid owners. Squash the environmental exceptions for SUVs and consumer-trucks and the car companies will stop marketing them so aggresively.

"More government" ha. The government applies regulations that encourage people to buy houses and I don't see anyone bitching and moanign about that (tax refunds for mortgages but not rent). Gore would have invested more in alternative fuels. Its silly to rely on fossile fuels forever, its bad for the economy and security of this country. Its ignoring the simple fact that eventually these are non-renewable resources we're expending.

Funny how "more government" to consumers only applies to non-regulating of the wealthy. We'll pass a nice super expensive to enforce law for telling you to get rid of your VCR because it doesn't have enough copy protection measures because we're good conservatives, but NOOO don't discourage people from buying SUV's...thats too much government... You better say your prayers in school and pray to our god...but DONT YOU DARE tell people about how crappy DRM is.. HA. (BTW I'm neither a conservative or a liberal and think both sides are hypocritical unrelistic slants).

-Andy

Re:Sunscreener

[JJ]

Actually, I think that was more due to the fact that you were thinking autumn with shorter days than spring. When I lived in NZ in 97/98 (south end of the Mainland) I found no difference.

Ozone hole leveled off every year

[LazyDawg]

Ok, here's the deal:

Stratospheric ozone is created by bombarding normal, happily breathable O2 mollecules with ultraviolet light, splitting the O2 into a pair of O1's. These O1's eventually bump into another O2 mollecule and create O3. Big woop.

Where there is solar UV light, you'll probably see some ozone popping up. Since the Antarctic Desert is in the dark for a good chunk of the year, you'll discover a not-too-surprising lack in stratospheric ozone over winter and well into the Spring. Also not surprisingly, we have an ozone hole over the north pole.

Over the north pole, of course, there isn't quite as extreme a desert as over the south, and there are more large land masses nearby to carry air better.

Back in the 30s when the first weather measurements were taken in Antarctica they found almost identical levels of UV light hitting them as during a modern winter. Greenies prefer to depend on climactic models rather than empirical evidence these days, however, so their multi-million dollar research is stating the problem is getting bigger, even if someone else's multi-thousand dollar research is saying the opposite.

The ozone hole is the result of too many people putting faith in government, who can't predict the future more than a few weeks down the road, and weather men, who can't predict the future more than a few days down the road, and expecting their government-funded computer models to be able to predict the future years down the road.

Re:Ozone hole leveled off every year

[crawling_chaos]

Forgive my cynicism, but do you have any citations? I would like to read the studies in question. I long ago stopped believing anything about global warming and/or ozone depletion that isn't peer reviewed (by scientists, not activists (of any stripe)). Both extremes of the debate spend more time scoring rhetorical points than doing science, as far as I can tell.

I'm more than willing to believe that the ozone "hole" is a complex natural phenomenon that humans may have very little to do with. I spent a few years studying Earth Science before I switched to computers, so I have a small inkling as to just how complex this system is. Show me the studies and let me read what the experts have to say. Then I have a chance of forming an informed opinion.

You don't help your argument trying to score a few points by blaming the government for the supposed inaccuracies in current climate models. Would industry funded research be any more accurate or trustworthy?

Re:Ozone hole leveled off every year

[argoff]

It should also be pointed out that at the poles the atmosphere is at a tangential angle to the sun whose radiation creates the ozone. You are never going to get alot of ozone with the sun comming into the atmosphere at that angle, the UV light would half to travel thru dozens of times more atmosphere than at the equator.

The real questions we should be asking are ones like why did NASA propose and get a multi-million dollar satelite to study ozone deplletion, when they know darn well that this is normal. Why did freeon become illegal the day after DOW-chemical's patent ran out (DOW also has a patnet on the only known replacement that hasn't expired yet!) These are the real reasons why the ozone is a big deal. Freeon is a very heavy gas, the dispertion probability of it getting up into the upper atmosphere is almost non-existent.

Yale

[Pope]

Bush Sr. and pals went to Yale.

Or don't you recall GHHWB's infamous remark regarding Mike Dukakis, calling him one of those northern Harvard types? Why the country's press didn't immediately call him on it for going to Yale, I'll never understand.

Re:Yale

[Digitalia]

Thanks for the heads up. I made the mistake of mixing up the school which his father attended with one of the two he went to. And I didn't remember the Dukakis statement. Thanks for some enlightenment.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Good point

[Uttles]

I agree with your statements, and I've read similar articles in scientific periodicles. Those articles, however, are usually well hidden and no longer than half a page, because they aren't very popular. So why is rational thought about the O-zone not popular? Well it's not sensationalist, it doesn't give people something to "fight" for, and people who are "environmentally concious" just hate to admit that they are wrong.

Another thing that I don't think you touched on, our climate goes in cycles. I don't recall the exact dates, but I know that some time ago in recent history (1960's maybe?) all of the popular scientists were warning of global cooling. That's right, the earth was getting too cold and there was going to be another ice age if people didn't do something about it. Our climate is not as stable as some would imagine, and contrary to popular beleive we humans have nothing to do with it. Yes, in large cities there is smog, but that is a microclimate just around the city, and it dissipates in the atmosphere and goes away eventually, doesn't affect the global environment. The global climate is something that is very dynamic and not easily understandable. One thing is for certain though: there is no proof that we have a problem with the O-zone layer.

Give me a break!

[Slashdolt]

Ummm... It's a lot sunnier in Australia. Even on a clear day in Pennsylvania, you still have A LOT of moisture in the atmosphere, which blocks a lot of the radiation.

Perhaps you should be comparing Arizona with Australia.

Re:Give me a break!

[f00k_Krm]

Perhaps you should be comparing Arizona with Australia.

Yeah you are right. I just never have lived in Arizona to make a decent comparison...And I know there are loopholes big enough to fit Rush Limbaugh through in my arguement.

I was just stating what I know from experience, generally slashdotters like you are smart enough to see the faults and take it for what its worth :)

(yeah I know, for some it may not be worth anything)

But also Sydney, Aust. has a decent amount of moisture in the air. After all, it has the most amazing waterways through the city and is right next to the ocean. (take that for what its worth also, yeah I know water on land does not equal atmosphere moisture levels)

But, point taken.

Re:Give me a break!

[twinpot]

Australia and NZ have the highest rates of skin cancer in the world. Some parts of NZ aren't that sunny either. Compare the skin cancer rates from places like Nelson (the sunniest area, top of the SI) and Arizona, and you'll find the skin cancer rates far, far higher (even though Arizona probably has higher sunshine hours).

Burn times are measured in terms of 8-10 minutes in the summer, and its worse by the beach/water. Even out of summer you can get seriously sun-burnt.

From personal experience, the burn time in NZ is far shorter that the burn time in the tropics, and I'm talking small, pacific islands tropics, not a polluted metropolis.

Both!

[Monkeychunks]

You raise an important issue, but keep the distinction clear: Individuals are often conscious of environmental issues, but company executives who have oil fields destroying the earth whilst living comfortably in Aspen typically just don't care. There is the difference: Caring individual, greedy corporation.

I say the best approach is to better educate individuals, and clamp down hard on companies who sadly ignore environmental concerns. Sadly for America, there is a two party system which means that environmental issues will not take center stage until such a time as it is an obvious survival issue. At least in many European countries, we can vote for a "green" party and lend a bigger voice to environmental concerns. So, for those of you in European countries, vote green. We all know that they are hardly going to rule a country outright, but the more voices, the better.

Re:Both!

[krlynch]

Individuals are often conscious of environmental issues, but company executives who have oil fields destroying the earth whilst living comfortably in Aspen typically just don't care.

Executives are individuals too, and corporations are owned, operated, and staffed by individuals. Companies do the things that they do because their customers (individuals!) tell them what to do: people (individuals!) buy gas guzzling SUVs because they like them - no one is forcing them to do so, and suggesting that the reason is "greedy corporations" is ludicrous. People (individuals!) buy the bigger SUV, not the more efficient one, because the bigger one is cheaper - no one is forcing them to spend less money, they just want to.

Suggesting that individuals care and corporations don't is inane and a refuge of the weak willed; corporations do what it takes to make a profit by providing individuals with the goods and services they want at the lowest price possible. Individuals do now and always have had the power to influence what corporatios do, by voting with their dollars (or euros or pounds or rupees etc) If you want a "greener" world, then you need to convince other "individuals" that they should be willing to pay for it, and you need to put your wallet where your mouth is. Don't try to absolve yourself by passing the buck to the "greedy corporation"; it is the collective decisions of millions of individuals that dictate what those corporations do.

NOAA Website Link

[Alien54]

Here is the link:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s792.htm

lots of links and pretty pictures available.

(And just a note: Radio Free Nation had this back in the middle of October, but what do I know? [smile])

shameless NOAA site plug

[ehackathorn]

I work for the Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory which is part of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). If anyone is interested, our lab launches balloons that help measure the level of ozone in the atmosphere at the South Pole.

More information can be found at the South Pole Ozone Page.

Eric

Ozone hole over the Antartic

[lenshead]

The ozone hole was discovered back in 1958 by the British Antarctic Survey. At the time, they saw it as a natural phenomenon caused by the South Atlantic Vortex -- a well established air movement pattern.

Now, there may be some real science behind CFCs and ozone depletion. The original lab work that demonstrated the chemistry was real. However, most of the material that comes my way about CFCs in the atmosphere seems more like spin than science. Maybe someone here can point us to some more measured and competent publications than I have been able to find.

Before we jump to too many conclusions about all the anti-CFC material, we should bear in mind it is standard practice for corporations to seek methods for making obsolete materials for which the patents have expired. Some creative lobbying and legislation is a great way to stop third-world companies turning out your products on the cheap.

Definitive Guide to Ozone Holes

[patrik]

For ozone to be destroyed you need:

1. UV-Light
   
2. CFCs and Ozone
   
3. cat nitrogen > /dev/null
   

Although I am sure that other chemicals can break down ozone, CFCS are the most common and best at doing it because they are lighter than air and they normally DO NOT react with anything around us (at or near sea level). These two properties make them fly up high into the ozone layer. The non-reactant portion is what made these chemicals so great and so unthought of as causing problems. To destroy ozone molecules you have to have some very specific conditions:

1. Uv-light forces the reaction breaks molecules down and what not
   
2. chlorine, as in Chloro-Flouro-Carbon (CFC), these kill ozone
   
3. no nitrogen, this is because nitrogen stops the process, being a noble gas it doesn't react too much
   
   

   Okay so now how do you get these conditions, and why is there no northern ozone hole? Well we have uv-light and aplenty so that's not a problem. The first issue is gathering a lot of CFCs (and ozone) into one place, this is taken care of by the Antarctic vortex. The vortex is there during certain months of the year and it builds up a lot CFCs and Ozone into a small space. In the northern polar regions it isn't so prominent because there are landmarks to break up these winds, however there are some weaker ones that are present in the north. Okay, we got ozone and CFC and light, now we need to get rid of the nitrogen. This is handled by formation of nitrogen clouds, which are clouds that are really cold and really high up that contain droplets of condensed nitrogen, and now the nitrogen is gone in the atmosphere and CFC havoc may occur. This doesn't happen in the north because the north pole is much warmer (or at least enough to prevent this). Now the scary thing is if we get a cold winter in the north then a big hole can form in the north, and if you look at a globe there are millions upons millions more people in the upper northen latitudes than there are in the southernmost latitudes. And if you use the following statistic, -1% ozone layer = +2% UV-light on the surface of the Earth = +4% skin cancer, which is sorta bad when applied to cities like London and Quebec and what not (yes these ozone holes can affect huge areas).
   
   

   Now before someone tries to beat me down for using pseudo science, my mother is on the DIAL team which is a NASA group that measures the ozone hole using a LIDAR(Laser detection) system. These were the people who went to confirm the ozone hole when NASA originally thought the TOMS satellite was malfunctioning because it had almost no readings in the south pole for ozone. I may have bungled some of the facts so if I did please correct me. I think most of these chemical processes have been tested in a lab so they are empirical evidence.
   
   

   As for the the stabilizing of the ozone I can only make a few conjectures: 1) the most likely IMHO, the temperature in the southern pole haven't been as cold lately, I know I have been going through some wacky yearly climate cahnges here, 2)the Earth is mucuh more resilient than we like to think, or 3) We're missing something that is there and it may not be only the CFCs or it could be a natural cyclical event, but I have trouble believing it is natural with all the scientific evidence I have seen. There are still too many CFCs in the ozone layer for it start repairing, and due to the resilience and the near-non-reactance of CFCs they will be around for another 60-100 years, before the ozone makes a come back and another 100 after that to repair itself.

Re:Definitive Guide to Ozone Holes

[krlynch]

Small correction: Nitrogen is not a noble gas. N2 is not reactive (hence, we have a nice, non-reactive atmosphere that doesn't chemically decompose us), because it is tightly bound. Atomic nitrogen, however, is highly reactive (that's why N2 is bound so tightly, and why most chemical explosives are nitrogen compounds). Nitrogen interrupts the CFC cycle because, when N2 is photo-dissociated into atmomic N, if the atomic N interacts with a CFC molecule, the molecule is broken up. CFCs live so long in the upper atmosphere because solar emissions contain relatively little radiation with sufficient energy to cause the photo-dissociation of nitrogen. Of course, it's been a while since I did any chemistry, so I may have something wrong here.

Hmmm, good arguments but I am not convinced

[Juju]

Ok, first, I agree that climate has been warmer. But there weren't as many people around at that time. There where also more trees (or green stuff).

Desertification + increased polution + dioxide levels on the rise = what is worrying me

Imagine, China and India burning all their forest and using as much energy as western countries, and I think we are in big trouble... Well that is if we don't find another way to kill humanity first ;o)

Ok, volvanoes produce more toxic emission than the whole industrial civilization... I am still not convinced about that one personally. What kind of pollution are we talking about here? Which substances?

Concerning experimenting, we a bit in a dead end. But I think that the attitude saying "we can't prove it, so let's not care!" is a bit childish.
So far we have got only one planet, so we should better be careful about it... Well that's my opinion anyway.

Re:Hmmm, good arguments but I am not convinced

[Bobo the Space Chimp]

> Imagine, China and India burning all their forest
> and using as much energy as western countries, and
> I think we are in big trouble...

And therein lies your fault, and the fault of many others.

Assuming India gets rid of its heavy-handed socialism, and China gets rid of communism, and both go to free markets, should those countries both get a standard of living even half the US's, technology will be rocketting ahead globally so rapidly that all these problems you fear will be trivial to solve.

Together, they are 8-10 times the size of the US. Imagine 8-10 US's working on various problems. Problems like producing gas or something similar artificially, if and when its needed in a few hundred years. How to produce even more food per acre. How to artificially alter weather. Etc. etc. etc.

It is a bizarre, perverted conceit of environmental groups to fear all the other countries of the US living at or near US standards. In reality, the world's technological advancement would be many times what it is now.

Why ISN'T everyone in the US using as much energy as a small nuclear bomb every year? They, and the rest of the world, should be.

First Hand Experience

[Lavi DM]

I was in Argentina last boreal summer. The sudden recovery of the ozone layer was big news there. I went down to the beach for a weak and the sun would not burn your skin nearly as fast as in previous years, when 20 o 25 minutes under a 12pm sun was enough to get a suntan.

This theory of mine.. Global Warming is Bunk

[ldopa1]

Global warming is a self correcting phenomenon. Yes, we may be accelerating the process, but it's essentially self correcting.

Ozone is created (primarily) in our atmosphere by sunlight hitting high altitude free floating water molecules, which break up into hydrogen and Ozone (O^2). The hole in the Ozone layer allowed sunlight to pour through onto the Antarctic ice cap, sublimating (look it up) ice into water vapor. The increase in water vapor allows larger amounts of water to make it to the higher altitudes where the high energy photons break it up into ozone, closing the hole.

Similarly, ice caps melt, causing water and clouds to form, the clouds shield the earth from sunlight, the temperature drops and ice forms again. We start the cycle all over again.

Of course, I'm not a scientist, but it makes sense to me and I've always thought this was true. With the exception of sunlight, the Earth is essentially a closed system, self reparing. The Earth is essentially a Raid Sunlight Motel: Energy checks in, but it doesn't check out.

Moreover, those nutty-crunchy-granola grannies who stand at the corner of Saks 5th Avenue protesting Fur and Leather don't seem to realize that hey, those plastic shoes they're wearing came from animals too, just 10,000 years deceased.

Most of the environmentalist bunk over the past few decades is exactly that: bunk. It generally hasn't been well thought out. -Why- do we care if the left-handed spotted ocelot is wiped out? There is no reason we should care. We're on the top of the food chain. We have no natural predators (except tigers, but we've pretty much taken care of THAT, and again, why do we care, except that they're pretty?). The Earth is at our disposal. I challenge anybody to point to one single endangered species that if we it wiped out, its dissapearance would significantly affect Mom and Dad Public's life. Whales? Whalers would be affected (and maybe the perfume industry, but they don't use whale oil any more), but there aren't a whole lot of whalers out there. Last time I checked, it was illegal to whale anyway (more run away envrionmentalism). Go on, find me one. And don't tell me the Cow is endangered.. You might just change my mind.

George Carlin had a point which I think applies here: euphemisms are basically an attempt by people to salve their conciences. Same thing with environmentalism (in general, there ARE exceptions). Environmentalist causes are by and large taken up by guilty, rich, well-fed white people. If you doubt this, take a look at the protestors on the corner. How many of them need a bath or a meal (except by choice: I know many envrionmentalists who need a bath, and most vegetarians need a steak, but it's not because they don't have the resources, it's because they choose it)? Almost none. They have the time to protest because they can afford it. They have the time. You don't see many homeless people protesting, because they're too busy trying to get a meal and a bath. I can tell you this because despite being a well fed white man myself, I have personal, visceral, experience with the "transient lifestyle". (Quoth George Carlin: "If you want to know what a moronic word 'lifestyle' is, all you have to do is realize that in a technical sense, Attila the Hun had an 'active, outdoor lifestyle'" Take my advice, homelessness is a crime of violence. Avoid it if you can.

Re:This theory of mine.. Global Warming is Bunk

[ldopa1]

a small correction : ozone is O3 (O2 is oxygen)

Of course, you're right. My typo. Thanks for the pickup.

Re:This theory of mine.. Global Warming is Bunk

[Smallest]

the answer you seek is contained within:

Most of the environmentalist bunk over the past few decades is exactly that: bunk. It generally hasn't been well thought out. -Why- do we care if the left-handed spotted ocelot is wiped out? There is no reason we should care. We're on the top of the food chain. We have no natural predators (except tigers, but we've pretty much taken care of THAT, and again, why do we care, except that they're pretty?).

...the last two words, in fact.

we want to keep nature alive because without it, we might as well all live in gray cinder block buildings under flourescent lights.

in western society, humans are just a couple generations removed from living with nature instead of next to it. but we still like it, we go to great lengths to be around it, to look at it, to play in it, to escape from our normal lives and get back to it. we devote huge expanses of valuable real estate to it.

it's not the extinction of indiviudal species that 's the issue, it's the principle; some people get really angry when they see other people seeking short term profit at the expense of the nature we all enjoy.

-c

Re:This theory of mine.. Global Warming is Bunk

[ldopa1]

it's not the extinction of indiviudal species that 's the issue, it's the principle; some people get really angry when they see other people seeking short term profit at the expense of the nature we all enjoy.

I totally agree. I'm all for conserving pretty things (You won't see me advocating a Heidi Klum Hunting Season anytime soon...), however, I am much more irritated by people who do things on principle but don't extend that principle to other things in life (see the plastic shoes example). Develop a more realistic principle, and I'll be happy. Object to fur not because it kills animals, object because you're disgusted by the killing of cute animals (which is the actual principle most people hold, rather than the cruel blah blah blah line)

Let's not have a double standard folks, one will do just fine.

solar cycle factor

[peter303]

Observations have just finished one 22-year solar activity cycle. Solar activity has been at a peak this year (producing magnificant aurora visible across much of the USA last weekend). This ascpect of natural causes should be understood too.

overly political scientists

[peter303]

I've seen too many examples of people overinterpreting there data decrying "disaster is at hand" or "no way the environemnt could be hurt". So little is known about natural activity, that the scientists shouldn't over do it.

Re:overly political scientists

[vortigern00]

The scientists, in my experience, aren't overdoing it. EVERY real scientist I have spoken to about the ozone hole or global warming has said "welllll, we don't really know."

Animation of the ozone hole

[The Panther!]

NOAA has an interesting page on the ozone hole, animated by days in 2001. Very cool to see the levels change and drop.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

[Muad'Dave]

This is you Antarctic Ozone layer. We're levelling off at our cruising altitude of 198,000 ft and expect an on-time arrival in Omaha. Thanks for flying Ozone Air, and have a nice day.

Wishful Thinking

[some oddball]

How much do you want to bet that we'll start seeing immediate levelling-off of the carbon dioxide level the moment the Kyoto accords are signed?

Ozone Hole Information from the CPC

[Ivan Raikov]

Here's some statistics and information on the ozone hole from the Climate Prediction Center:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere /sbuv2to/ozone_hole.html

NOAA ozone site

[Isaac-Lew]

As some of you may or may not know, I am the system administrator for www.noaa.gov (the webserver, not the whole organization). Ozone information can be found on:

http://www.ozonelayer.noaa.gov

BTW - for anyone that cares, the ozonelayer site runs on a Linux box :).

The truth is...

[errxn]

They can't prove it. Oh, sure, they can come up with tons of circumstantial evidence, to be sure, but the one thing that they cannot do is establish causality beyond a doubt. It's impossible, there are just simply too many variables, and how can they possibly establish a scientific control group, when the experimental group is the entire planet? The answer is...they can't.

So, what's the next best thing they can do? Go on the PC offensive, or course! It's simple and it's proven to be effective time and time again. They can just demonize any thought or information that doesn't conform to their preconceived determination, and use the willing accompices in the media and academia to ensure that their views will be the "accepted" ones. Anything that doesn't march in lockstep will be declared "evil" and ostracized.

If you don't believe me, just watch as this post gets modded down by some "friends of the earth", just like my last one did.

Re:The truth is...

[nomadic]

They can't prove it. Oh, sure, they can come up with tons of circumstantial evidence, to be sure, but the one thing that they cannot do is establish causality beyond a doubt.


WHO CARES? As long as they can establish a REASONABLE chance that there IS a causal relationship, then let's act on it. And they've done that; let's see, on one hand we have pro-business pseudoscience, and on the other we have the work of tens of thousands of scientists. Who would you believe? The idea that we can't establish a causal relationship to 100% certainty is a point that only a philosopher of science should reasonably care about. Hell, if they establish a 30% chance we should act on it, simply because the possible costs are so high.

So, what's the next best thing they can do? Go on the PC offensive, or course! It's simple and it's proven to be effective time and time again. They can just demonize any thought or information that doesn't conform to their preconceived determination, and use the willing accompices in the media and academia to ensure that their views will be the "accepted" ones. Anything that doesn't march in lockstep will be declared "evil" and ostracized.

And what the hell do you think you're doing?

Re:The truth is...

[nomadic]

Many of the "thousands of scientists" you mention have vested interests as well.

And what about those that don't? The reason you're discounting their research is not because it's flawed but because you don't agree with it.

lot of the pro-environment propaganda that goes on is the direct result of big corporations wanting to manipulate you

How on earth can you be so amazingly, 100% wrong? It's remarkable.

Point to one single PAC formed by corporations that endorses stricter environmental regulations. Go ahead, I dare you.

so they keep quiet when polititians and various other talking heads distort their findings to sound more frighning than they really are.

Do you even read the paper? Most politicians ignore this, as they've ignored it for decades.

Face it, you are being played.

And you are so lost in the self-delusion of your own little fringe ideology that it's not even worthwhile to continue this.

Re:The truth is...

[errxn]

What the hell do I think I'm doing? Just doing my part to expose what is really going on. And no, as much as you'd love to try to set up some kind of faulty moral equivalence on the issue, it just doesn't wash.

The idea that we can't establish a causal relationship to 100% certainty is a point that only a philosopher of science should reasonably care about....

Uhh, excuse me, but isn't this science that we are talking about in the first place? Oh, wait, sorry, you are absolutely right, of course! This is nothing more than politics in the guise of "science"! Excuse me for that little oversight.

The really sad thing about this whole debate is that, by using such "sky-is-falling" scare tactics and demagoguery, the left wing has successfully hijacked the whole environmental issue and used it as nothing more than a means to ram their marxist dogma down everyone else's throats. And now, because of this, even the legitimate concerns of honest people get caught in the fracas.

Think it's bullshit? Try taking a long hard look at your ridiculous .sig and then tell me with a straight face what your true motives are.

Re:The truth is...

[nomadic]

Uhh, excuse me, but isn't this science that we are talking about in the first place? Oh, wait, sorry, you are absolutely right, of course! This is nothing more than politics in the guise of "science"! Excuse me for that little oversight.

So you actually believe that science never enters the picture? That the climatologists, ecologists, environmental chemists, geophysicists who research this stuff are just wasting their lives on a useless pursuit. The facts are these:

1. Releasing industrial waste (as CO2, CFCs, chlorine, heavy metals, whatever) into the environment changes that environment.

2. These changes are probably harmful to humans.

If this is the case, shouldn't we try to limit how much of these wastes we release? Just because we haven't proven all of the facts 100%? Do you not pay car insurance because there's not a 100% chance you'll get into an accident?

What happens to pollutants then, if you release them into the air? You think they magically disappear? Let me guess, the hole in the ozone doesn't exist either?

The really sad thing about this whole debate is that, by using such "sky-is-falling" scare tactics and demagoguery, the left wing has successfully hijacked the whole environmental issue and used it as nothing more than a means to ram their marxist dogma down everyone else's throats.

Oh yes, you found us out. The entire environmental movement is simply a front for a vast Marxist conspiracy. After we sneak in all those environmental regulations we're going to erect a statue of Marx in Washington, DC, then march around waving red flags chanting Soviet slogans. Give me a break.

Think it's bullshit? Try taking a long hard look at your ridiculous .sig and then tell me with a straight face what your true motives are.

My motives? What motives can you extrapolate from my sig?

Re:wrong..

[andy_from_nc]

HA and a nice big nuclear winter from all the car wrecks...

Hole over NZ, What blooming hole?

[refactored]

Bizzarre. Does anybody actually look at those images?

Every blooming image over the pass couple years has shown that the Ozone layer is thicker over South Africa and New Zealand than practically anywhere else in the Southern hemisphere!

So whats the problem?!

Sure, there is a ozone hole over Antartica, but everyone acts as if the problem is here in NZ.

Me thinks the brain dead media is scaremongering and the climatologists are feeding them to whip things up for grant season...

Sure you get burnt here in sunny NZ, but thats got more to do with staying in doors all winter 'cause its freezing and then going bouncing about the great out doors all summer 'cause the sun doesn't go down until it almost should get up!

Environmentalism.

[mad_clown]

Rabid environmentalism cracks me up. It's one thing to reduce pollution to make the sky look less brown, or to reduce respiratory diseases and such, but all this "Save the Earth!" crap is such a lie. It's all about saving HUMANS, not the Earth. If we launched 600 high-powered thermonuclear warheads, life on Earth (on the surface at least) would probably be wiped out, or close to it. But don't forget that there's life TEEMING in the oceans, in pitch black, on thermal vents on the ocean floor that are far more inhospitable than we can make things on the surface. The Earth can take care of itself. It's made it to this point from being a molten ball of rock. No matter what harm we do, give our planet a couple million years, and it'll be back to normal... for instance, check out the surface of the planet... do you see many impact craters? No. Why? Because the Earth, unlike, say, Mercury or our moon, experiences alot of volcanic/weather activity that really helps to erase cataclysms. People ought to stop pretending that they're really trying to save the Earth and admit they're looking out for the species instead. This planet's been through alot more than humans, and once we're gone it'll continue to go on until the sun eventually envelops in when it grows into a red giant. Earth can take care of itself. It's people who need saving.

I expect more from /. and the Slashbots posting

[stark_fist_05]

Here in the realm of reality, the Sun's UV rays are blocked when they hit "O2" molecules the "O2" then is spilt into two "O1" molecules. When the newly formed "O1" attaches to a neighboring "O2" it forms O3 or "Ozone". Ozone is strictly a byproduct of the process. So now one can understand why every year during the several months of polar darkness, Ozone cannot be found. Why does the media publish articles that are void of any valid science, maybe soon we will hear of a new environmental crisis "Spontaneous Human Combustion" Next Time Someone Says to you, "Don't use hairspray ..blah, blah.., the Ozone keeps us from getting cancer", you can reply " No Idiot, Oxygen does"

Re:Mortgage vs. rent

[andy_from_nc]

What the heck are you talking about? There is no subidy for renters. (at least not in the states which is where we were talking about).

The slumlord gets a break but not as big as a homeowner (commercial property).

-Andy (a homeowner and former renter)

I've never understood the problem...

[DestructioN]

Back in High School chemistry we had to do a section on environmental chemistry to fulfill the IB (International Baccalaureate) requirement. From what I recall ozone itself is created by the ionizing (bad) UV light that supposedly does damage to humans and wildlife. Once the ozone is created the energy from the UV light has be expended creating the ozone and is no longer harmful. CFCs can then come over and react with the ozone, and turn it back into oxygen. CFCs didn't interfere in the production of the ozone it merely ripped off the extra oxygen to make more O2 which was then free to react and make more ozone, repeat ad nauseum. The lack of ozone has no detrimental effects. Either way the non-ionizing UV light still gets through. It was the O2 that stopped the ionizing UV light, not the ozone, and no one's claiming there's a lack of O2.