Slashdot Mirror
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."
Let us now see how long it takes for someone, either on a slashdot thread, in the public discourse, or on talk radio, to take the jump that "multiple factors exist in the depletion of ozone" immediately leads to the conclusion "claims human interference are a significant detrimental factor in the depletion of the ozone are false"
... why I don't believe the "Global Warming is being caused by greedy corporations" spiel..
quite simply, it's because most people (scientists included) quite simply don't have enough information to say for a FACT that THIS or THAT is causing ozone depletion:
"While chlorofluorocarbons are still blamed for ozone depletion, scientists said this study shows they don't properly account for the sun's impact."
Before this gets modded as troll or flamebait, read it again. All I'm saying is that theories are one thing. Presenting theories as facts is another thing entirely.
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
...this means in any minute now we'll get one of those charming "See? We don't need to worry about things in the environment being damaged by man-made processes, because it happens by itself anyway!" posts. Well, before that happens, I'd like to pose a question. Namely, if things have the potential to break, and if nature can break things on its own...how does that justify anyone making it break worse than it would just by itself? Using this logic, it would be okay if a factory artificially generated tornados all the time because, hey, it happens in nature.
Save the galaxy!
With winters getting warmer every year, it's only a matter of time before we are up to our necks in industrially poisoned ocean.
It's interesting, though, that with all the talk from liberal groups like the Sierra Club about how industry is the culprit, that we come to find out that it might be the SUN ITSELF that's depleting the ozone layer! In the wake of the recent CBS debacle, maybe it's time we started viewing such activists with a more suspicious eye.
Maybe it's time we stopped looking for more problems on earth, and start looking to controlling threats from outer space -- threats like solar storms and asteroids. With our current level of intercelestial preparedness, it would take only one oversized meteor or a solar storm to fry this intergalactic backwater we call earth to a crisp. We need to step up efforts to expand orbital missile defense and lunar and martian defense outposts or we'll have only ourselves to blame when some freak cosmic event destroys life as we know it.
A Proud Member of the Reality Oriented Community.
See? You have no idea just what's happening with natural systems. "Ooohh... my hairspray is damaging the planet! Ooohhh... look at the big bad scary humans, overestimating their importance!"
"Only human arrogance assumes the message must be meant for man." - Spock, Star Trek IV
Wow....massive environmental changes can be caused by...OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL changes!
This has been my biggest gripe with environmental groups. Almost none of them take into account the fact that the Earth has radically "re-organized" itself (for lack of a better word) several times BEFORE man ever came along, and we don't yet understand how or why. We've had several radical changes in global temperature, sea levels, atmosphere composition, etc, most before man ever walked the Earth.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Indeed, the sun is in fact about half of the cause for ozone depletion involving CFCs. That's because that when CFCs drift up into the stratosphere photons, in their selfish and inexorable rush toward the earth, smack into them and bust off the chlorine . For shame, Mr. Sun. So, rather than eliminate the CFCs and thus the chlorine that breakz ozone down into 02 and free oxygen, we would do just as well to put up a Mr. Burns-style sun blocker. Now that would stop global warming. I gotta say, though, I'm really not willing to make the implied trade, I think I'd miss the aerosol hair spray a little less than food.
and yet we had a melanoma incidence rate of 1 in 150,000 in the 1930's and it's around 1 in 75 now. Yeah, it's all part of natural world and nothing to do with the rate of industrialization.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
It's ok that the Earth radically re-organized itself in the distant past before humans came along.
It's not ok from a human standpoint for the Earth to radically re-organize itself now.
Really, we should do everything in our power to keep the Earth rather like it has been for the last 10000 years.
Think for a second... Has anyone PROVEN that there has EVER been an "ozone hole" ANYWHERE but at the poles? Like right over ANY of the industrialized nations that emit CFCs?
Not to my knowledge or in any scholarly tract I have ever seen.
It took until NOW for someone to think, "Hmmm... maybe the sun has something to do with the ozone layer..."
The idea that a dynamic world affecting power source could create AND destroy isn't new. Witness the ring of fire in the Pacific Ocean. Subduction destroys, magma release renews.
One wonders how any could miss the fact that the known ozone depletion spots happen to coincide with the planet's magnetic poles and thus where loads of solar charged particle radiation ends up, having to pass through the same ozone that the sun itself created.
This isn't a troll. This is simple exasperation at the endless "human kind is responsible for all ills that plague the world". I'm sure superstitious islanders of the nineteenth century who survived Krakatoa agreed with that, but it ain't necessarily so.
There seems to be some obsession among some people with the idea that everything should always remain as it is right now despite the fact that our own science proves to us that the world was different in multiple different ways over vast periods of time before we were ever a kink in the dna and logically will be short of our intelligent intervention and massive effort.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
It claims: The ozone layer has recovered since CFCs were banned.
My point is we don't really know. Nobody has been watching the thing long enough to understand it's habbits. Have we been monitoring it for a full solar cycle (only with ground level UV tests if that). It could all just be noise. Ozone holes could be normal, or they could be much worse then previously realized. You do realize most stratospheric ozone is produced by UV hitting O2? You'd kind of expect holes during six months of darkness.
Further you realize CFCs were banned globally in what 1995? Refrigerants are still leaking.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
more nitrogen was created
Somebody please explain to the poster how elements work.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
.. is the "we ain't screwing the planet" lobby starting to sound like the tobacco lobby in the late 70's / early 80's ?
"There's no definitive proof that smoking causes lung cancer..." Remember that one?
Hmmm.
We ain't going to Mars until we fix what we've done to this planet!
Stevo
Forget the truth. Science is fact.
The reason the ozone holes form above the poles and not directly above the CFC source regions is due to the very cold atmospheric conditions at the poles.
Source
It should serve as a lesson to you that your actions can have effects beyond your backyard.
Most scientists I know recognise that there are "natural" components to phenomena such as the ozone holes (eg volcanic aerosoles) and global warming. The concern is that human activities may exacerbate the effects and that the rate of change may be much faster than would otherwise be the case.
If you ever wonder what affect humanity's actions have on the world and our society, look at the ruined land due to salinity in Australia.
What is the inverse of the Matrix?
In January, the a European scientist warned residents of the far north to basically stay out of the sun.
In January, residents of the far north have no choice but to stay out of the sun.
No wonder no one took him seriously.
In January, a European scientist warned residents of the far north to basically stay out of the sun. Um..hello? There is no sunlight in the far, far north during the month of January, just ask anyone in Barrow, Alaska. It would be nice to have even dangerous sunlight to avoid.
Some things about the article seriously bother me, like "creating nitrogen" and "nitrogen gas is known to destroy ozone". If the most common gas in our atmosphere destroys ozone then why does it exist at all? Nitrogen (not as a gas) is important in the depletion process but not as the article implies...
Before anyone claims that humans are no longer the cause for the ozone hole, please realize the depletion was caused because of CFCs. Ozone is depleted as a result of many things, CFC is one of the key components and is a non-natural factor. The increased UV and polar vortices that were a result of the solar activity along with a colder winter increased the depletion, but, it would never have happened at above natural levels without CFCs.
Please read: A simple explanation that I posted a while back and a more complete explanation on how the ozone hole is formed.
These chemical processes are extremely well known: We know that CFCs are the cause, we know that there are a lot of them near the ozone layer, we know they are man made. Therefore, we know we are the cause. All that these researchers found out is that these conditions will speed up the process, not that they are the cause of the process.
It is unfortunate that even with the CFC ban it will take 100-200 years for the ozone hole to repair itself to pre-industrial era levels...
Patrik
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Just your ordinary BOFH
http://killertux.org
Well it seems the earth is in a cooling trend right now so I was TRYING to put as much CO2 into the atmosphere as possible to counter the effect. Then everyone got pissed, so I stopped...
And now you are telling me to go back at it to keep the climate stable? Make up your damn mind already!
The best, most conservative evidence of the day says that human impact on global warming is negligible, and that, therefore, we really don't need to do anything at all.
Now, of course, you aren't interested in the best, most conservative evidence, because you are all for doing something, anything right now, immediately before we all suffer catastrophic apocalypse.
So much for taking the best, most conservative evidence.
Global warming is nothing more than the latest tool of the ever with us tyrants to put themselves in power and tell you how to live your life.
Remember, the tyranny that makes you feel morally superior is the tyranny you embrace, and the modern green movement is all about moral superiority.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.