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."

Comments

It's Just Evolving

[sameb]

>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.

Re:It's Just Evolving

[Iamthefallen]

Excactly, we'll have intelligent creatures made out of not being ozon, ie holes. It's gonna be a confusing time for mankind...

To be pedantic:

[Observer]

<>slashdot>It's not yet been determined whether this is a result of unusual weather patterns or whether the ozone layer is recovering.</slashdot>

Actually, the CNN article quotes Long at MOAA as saying that the change is the result of unusual weather patterns but that it is too soon to say whether the ozone layer is recovering. Slight difference in meaning there.

Everybody knows == A failure of imagination

[geoswan]

Everybody knows that any ozone hole data means nothing. Including the data that termed it a hole in the first place.

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.

Recently, it was disclosed that a large hole in the ozone layer appears once a year over the South Pole. The researchers had first detected this hole approximately 8 years ago by tests done at the South Pole itself.

Why did they wait 8 years to disclose this disturbing fact? Because the satellite that normally gives ozone levels had not reported any such hole and the researchers could not believe that the satellite's figures could be incorrect. It took 8 years of testing before they felt confident enough to dispute the satellite's figures.

And why did the satellite fail to report this hole? Because it had been programmed to reject values that fell outside the "normal" range!

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.

Re:Smaller holes or more distributed?

[helix400]

I remember reading one of the articles saying that the ozone hole was defined as an area where the density of ozone drops below a certain level.

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.