Sun Storms Deplete Ozone, Too

An anonymous reader writes "Turns out the sun itself zaps the ozone that protects us from the sun. LiveScience is reporting that the record-setting string of solar storms around Halloween in 2003 (including an X28 flare) set off a cascade of events that depleted the ozone layer over the Arctic in early 2004. In a nutshell, more nitrogen was created, and an unusually strong vortex of high-speed winds aloft brought the nitrogen down, where it contributed to cutting ozone by 60 percent over the polar region. In January, the a European scientist warned residents of the far north to basically stay out of the sun. While chlorofluorocarbons are still blamed for ozone depletion, scientists said this study shows they don't properly account for the sun's impact."

Comments

Re:One more reason...

[geoffrobinson]

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=139895 &cid=11713542

When I mentioned a 2003 article which said scientists hadn't been taking the sun into account regarding global warming, some just couldn't wrap their brains around that fact. All those scientists. How could they miss something so obvious?

Maybe blaming the sun doesn't bring in enough grant money?

Re:Is it just me or...

[starm_]

Ha ha, this is funny, go to the hospital right now. I dare you. Go to where the lung cancer patients are. Ask EACH ONE of them if they were/are smokers or worked in an environment with a lot of smoke.

You'll see that practically ALL of them will answer yes.

A doctor once told me that if you smoke you wont necessarily get lung cancer, but if you have it it is because you smoked. Almost no one outside the smokers have lung cancer.

stupid studies destroy knowledge

[Doc Ruby]

This study is stupid. Of course solar storms destroy the ozone - that's how ozone protects us from the sun. Ozone is consumed by absorbing lethal UV rays from the Sun before they hit us nearer the surface. The next idiotic study will say "ironicly, bullets destroy the bulletproof vests that protect us from bullets!", or some blather about how crashes destroy the helmets that protect us from crashes. This is obviously more jerking around from some polluter which wants us to accept ozone-destroying pollution, because ozone destruction is "natural". Well, nothing is more natural than dying - I recommend it more to some researchers than to others.