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Ozone Hole Splits in Two
DaDigz writes "CNN is reporting here that the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica has split in two "like a giant amoeba". It's not yet been determined whether this is a result of unusual weather patterns or whether the ozone layer is recovering. One can hope, though, that this may be a sign of a mend in the ozone layer."
do we know for sure that there was a time when there wasn't a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica?
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
Unfortunately, CFCs are not fully phased out all over the world. China still uses them, and since China's set to become the world economic powerhouse over the next half-century, the only hope for continued recovery is getting them to halt their production of CFCs. And quite honestly, does anybody really believe that chlorofluorocarbons aren't used in places like India? I mean, there's a reason they were so popular- cheap, relatively easy to manufacture, effective; they would be a wonder chemical if they didn't eat holes in the ozone layer. In less ecologically sensitive countries (yes, one can be less ecologically sensitive than the United States) with weak environmental controls, use of CFCs is a rather attractive proposition.
>It's split in two like an amoeba.
This quite obviously means that the ozone layer is a living organism, and in a hundred million years, we'll have intelligent creatures that are entirely made up of ozone layer.
If the ozone hole is splitting, then perhaps it is alive. Or, perhaps it was just lonely and tired of everybody trying to find ways to get rid of it. I know I'd have a big inferiority complex if everybody talked about me so negatively.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
An interesting factor that is often ignored is the time it takes CFCs to ascend to the upper atmosphere. Most of those produced during the world's peak output have not even made it to the point where they would do any damage yet. To generalize, it may be healing now, but in the next ten years the sum total of the industrial 1980's may rip the scab right off.
P
it's a simple example of The Coriolis Force
The hole is in a cloud layer, it's not a object. Winds and gravity will mix the ozone back into the hole, making the overall layer thinner but still there.
http://www.windpower.dk/tour/wres/coriolis.htm
I wonder if the hole is something that is recurring rather then just an effect of pollution. maybe gravity thickens the layer around the equator leaving open patches at the poles. But it's safer to not be so messy with the planet.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Yes, if they were located in the northern hemisphere :)
The reason, why there is are Ozone "Holes", and not just a uniformly reduced ozone layer is that the ODS are carried by the global winds to the poles.
All hail to the Coriolis effect.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
It's obvious to me that lighter elements are fusing into heavy elements at the south pole. The evidence is that what was obviously an S orbital is now a P orbital. Just look at the picture.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
You're mixing up different problems and different chemicals.
We have reduced chloroflorocarbon - CFC - production pretty well. CFCs are what attack the ozone layer.
Carbon dioxide - CO2 - emmissions continue to be high. You get it every time you burn something or breathe out; but the problem is that burning fossil fuels adds more C02 to the air than the normal biological cycle. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but not toxic.
Carbon monoxide - CO - is a toxic gas. This is what kills you if you leave your car running in a closed garage; it is often used for killing animals. It results from ineffecient combustion. Catalytic converters and oxygenated fuels have reduced CO emissions over the past few years.
Summary:
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I believe my math geek friends would characterize this as, "proof by assertion" ?
You aren't making this assertion from knowledge. Your assertion is coming from your intuition. Everybody doesn't know this. I don't know this. Neither do a lot of climate experts. Neither do you. You don't have knowledge. You have a belief about the ozone hole -- based on your intuition.
Well intuition failed us when it came to the ozone hole.
Here are some RISKS articles, from 1986, shortly after the ozone hole was first recognized, to back me up.
Ozone hole undetected for years due to programming error
Ozone references.
What happened here is that intuition failed. Intuition failed the physicists who specified the sanity filters. And, I would argue, that intuition failed you too.
Yep. Quoting the article on Yahoo:
"The ozone hole is the area with total column ozone below 220 Dobson Units...A reading of 100 Dobson Units means that if all the ozone in the air above a point were brought down to sea-level pressure and cooled to freezing it would form a layer 1 centimeter thick. At that scale a reading of 250 Dobson Units translates to a layer about an inch thick."
So isn't it possible that two holes would spread the thinning area out? The total lack of ozone still exists and could still be growing.
Sort of...ozone in the southern hemisphere has a funny way of displacing itself. The ozone hole is comes and goes in a cycle. First its there, half a year later it vanishes, half a year later its back...etc. The funny part is, when the hole arrives, a lot of the ozone is *displaced* around the hole. So if the south pole had only 150 Dobson units of ozone, Australia could jump up to 400 units. (275 being the rough average).
So with today's smaller ozone holes, the missing ozone isn't necessarilly thinning the surrounding area out, its bringing all the ozone in the atmosphere back to a uniform density.
'Twas a very interesting evolution of the "hole", I must admit. Looks like a good fluid dynamics experiment gone unstable to me.
A quick summary of why the ozone hole exists:
- During polar winters, the solar insolation (amount of light from the sun) goes to zero. Since the photochemical reaction by ozone on UV light is no longer there, the stratosphere begins to cool around the poles. This leads to no ozone being produced or destroyed. (Ozone, in the stratosphere, requires light to be created in the first place.)
- This cooling leads to the formation of a very strong vortex by an atmospheric "law" called thermal wind. This vortex tends to be incredibly strong, usually on the order of 50 m/s (112 mph). This vortex usually covers the entire polar region.
- Given the strength of this vortex, very little mixing occurs between contents inside the vortex and outside the vortex. So, as time progresses, the already present chlorine and flourine compounds in the vortex have time to react with the ozone and deplete it noticably (since the vortex doesn't allow the ozone from the lit-up areas of the globe to mix in and refresh the levels).
- As the sun comes back up in polar spring, the photochemical reactions begin again, further reducing the levels of ozone. However, these reactions warm up the middle of the vortex. This warming tends to break down the vortex quite quickly and allows the ozone from the middle latitudes mix in and refresh the ozone levels.
Now, all this happens in both hemispheres during the appropriate winter months. But the Antarctic hole tends to be stronger than the Arctic one for one very simple reason: land. Topography helps set up large-scale waves in the atmosphere's flow. These waves can influence the polar vortex by essentially perturbing it. These perturbations can then grow (depending on the properties of the vortex) and become unstable, leading to a total vortex breakdown. Those events are commonly seen in the Arctic vortex since there are three large mountain ranges in the Northern Hemisphere to excite planetary-scale waves. But around Antarctica, there aren't any significant mountain ranges to excite these waves, so the vortex tends not to be perturbed significantly.
But, it appears this season, that something is causing a very strong wavenumber-2 perturbation (wavenumber-n perturbations have n crests and troughs around a latitude circle). That's pretty obvious from the elliptical early evolution and, then, the eventual breakdown into two lobes. What actually "caused" this amplification is an excellent question. Perhaps this year's vortex was inherrently unstable to wavenumber-2 perturbations? Perhaps this season's El Nino had some odd effect on it? (Doubt that, but it's an interesting idea.) Either way, this event will be studied quite heavily the next few years, I'm sure. (Perhaps even by myself at some point.)
-Jellisky
To think those environmental nuts thought the ozone hole was a problem! Now that we have it divided well have it beat it no time!! It's great how that one big problem just because 2 slightly smaller ones, well I guess now that the ozone holes have become disorganized and should be falling apart and fighting among themselves it's safe to go out tanning again, I wonder what that strange rash on my arm is...
I stole this Sig
Yes, ice core samples reveal that prior to 1960, there was no hole in the ozone layer. The effects of UV on the ice layers is quite easy to detect in ice cores.
I wish I could think of a witty Sig. Sigh!
As a temporary stopgap as we move to sustainable energy, perhaps they may be of use. They're certainly interesting to think about.
However, until we have a much deeper understanding of ecology I'd have to say it's much wiser to give priority to stopping our f*cking around with the spaceship's life support system and letting it reset itself, than to f*cking with it some more in hopes of balancing out our first f*ckups.
The difference is not that great, perhaps on the order of 10 percent. (Some say that there's no significant difference at all. There are others who claim that organic methods have very low yields, but I think agriculture research sponsored by Dow and Monsanto has about the same credibility as lung cancer research sponsored by Phillip Morris.) Considering that most organic farmers are new to the methods involved, we can expect yields to rise as experience is gained.
Also, if you want to talk land use you need to factor in the land used for energy production, the land taken up by chemical plants, the land used up by drilling and mining operations, the land used for waste disposal of all of these operations, and the land eventually rendered unsuitable for agriculture by non-sustainable methods.
That's not even factoring in water pollution from fertilizer and pesticide production and runoff, air pollution from chemical production and energy production. And not even touching on the health costs of pesticide contamination in the finished food product.
Considering the total resource footprint, organic is the clear winner.
And there's little "conventional" about chemical-saturated high-yield farming - it represents a very small slice of humanity's experience with agriculture.
Certainly no more so than the effects of continuing to mess around with the environment as we are.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
It does take a lot more work. I imagine sosedada spent less than 30 seconds on his proof by assertion. Hunting down those links, and writing my article, took me half an hour. But it is a worthwhile cause.
After half an hour I decided showing that there was no certainty was enough.
Dialogue is, I believe, the important thing. Dubya is the person I would most like to see have his views on Kyoto challenged. Dubya too, is asserting certainty, based not on knowledge, but on short term expediency and wishful thinking.
The very first time we looked at the ozone layer, we found a hole. I have yet to see conclusive proof that it has not always been there.
SW