Your Thoughts on the Great Ozone Debate?

Hrodvitnir asks: "Yesterday the BBC reported that the hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic is the largest on record. Today CNN says that it is recovering, or at least stabilized. Do we really know what's going on? Is this more bad science/false studies, or are they both partially right?"

Comments

not THAT unusual

[Afecks]

The hole is a seasonal ozone hole over the South Pole. It comes and goes, sometimes it's bigger than usual. This has been used by environmentalists since the 80's to scare people.

Re:What I've always wondered

[mOoZik]

The reason they end up over the poles is because that's where the offending particles end up. To read about why this is so, visit here: Ozone Hole.

Another Link

[TripMaster Monkey]

Here's a good link to the story...quite a bit of detail not present in either article cited in the submission.

Interesting that the sources that hold that the hole is gtting worse are European, while the sources that state everything's OK are American.....hmm....

Re:Another Link

[RAMMS EIN]

``After all, according to Germany's environmental minister, Hurricane Katrina is George Bush's fault.''

Which is exaggerated and slanderous, but not entirely without truth. Some people (myself included) firmly believe that the weather is out of control because of climate changes (temperatures and amounts of rain are very much out of tune with what they should be where I live, and it's been getting worse in recent years). If you accept that human activity is to blame for the climate changes (of which I'm not convinced), then Bush's america certainly does increase the likelihood of floods (as seen in central Europe), storms, and hurricanes.

Re:Another Link

[rco3]

The politicians of New Orleans are the only ones to blame here. Their complete lack of planning and preparation has produced thousands of deaths.

What, you think you're the only person on the planet who thought N.O. was vulnerable? You've been trumpeting this danger to the mountaintops, and yet no one would listen?

"New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

"Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

"Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. "

Source:editorandpublisher.com

Planning and preparation are useless if someone takes away your ability to execute those plans. You ever been through a major hurricane?

Re:What I've always wondered

[Afecks]

Does the hole over the antarctic have anything to do with the fact that there is no or very little plan vegetation down there? I guess if so the same hole might be over the arctic. But still, why does the hole end up over a magnetic pole? No it doesn't. The ozone is created by the sun's rays hitting the earth's atmosphere. During this time of year there are fewer rays hitting the South Pole. Less rays, less ozone. No big deal.

Magnetic Pole Flip causing this

[Anonymous Coward]

Nova did a story on this and when you saw the change in the magnetic field at the poles it looked like an outline of the ozone hole.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/

It amazed me to hear that there are areas in the southern hemisphere that a compass does not work at all.

No

[vlad_petric]

The ozone layer actually has nothing to do with plants. It is continually produced by solar radiation and oxygen, and it is also continually "consumed". O3 is heavier than air, so it falls down in the lower atmosphere. However, things like CFCs are very effective at catalytically breaking down ozone into regular oxygen (1 molecule of CFC will break thousands of ozone molecules). The stratospheric clouds during the polar winter just happen to have a higher concentration of CFCs.

BTW, did you know that because of the huge ozone hole, Chileans from the extreme south have to wear sunscreen all the time ?

Herb

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I keep a can of it in my car, helps kill the "herb" aroma when the coppers pull me over...

Re:I'd like to take a moment

[phlegmofdiscontent]

You need to learn some science. Ozone depletion and global warming are NOT the same thing. Carbon dioxide does NOT deplete ozone. Chlorine, in the form of CFCs, DOES deplete ozone. Thanks to an international treaty, most CFC production has ceased and CFC concentration in the atmosphere is dropping. And while there are hints that global warming may exacerbate ozone depletion, this is by no means certain. Most models suggest that ozone depletion is stabilizing and will recover in a few decades. At least in this sense, we're reducing our damage. Now is the time to concentrate on other, more pressing issues like global warming.

Well, sort of

[mcc]

The articles linked are both right in some sense, the article submission is wrong... the slashdot summary here says the 2005 hole is the "the largest on record", the BBC article it links says it is the largest on record since 2000, which was the actual all-time record...

It doesn't matter...

[CptNerd]

.. since It's All Bush's Fault(tm)

Re:Easy

[lightyear4]

Both are completely right. An elaboration: Wheras the CNN article discusses the stabilization of ozone depletion, the BBC article discusses the size of the Antarctic ozone hole. The BBC piece says, in not so many words, that the size of the ozone depleted region was largest in 2000 and 2003, owing to biennial-ish seasonal fluctuations and weather conditions. The hole might be of similar size THIS year as well for the same reasons. However, to quote from the very same BBC article:

• Two years ago researchers produced the first evidence that damage to the ozone layer is slowing down; globally, they showed, destruction continues, but at a slower rate than before.
  That is down to the Montreal Protocol, established in 1987, which has limited production and use of CFCs and related substances.
  But the indications are that the ozone layer will not be back to its pre-industrial condition for at least another 50 years.

So then, both articles do indeed agree. They were not referring to separate conclusions on the same issue, but instead to different facets of the same phenomenon.

Consult the original studies

[Jeremy Erwin]

The CNN article (actually Reuters, but hey...) refers to "Wednesday's issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research." So, going back to google, one discovers that abstracts from the JGR are available...

Statistical trend analyses have been performed for monthly zonal average total ozone data from both TOMS and SBUV satellite sources and ground-based instruments over the period 1978-2002 for detection of a "turnaround" in the previous downward trend behavior and hence evidence for the beginning of an ozone recovery. Since other climatic and geophysical changes can impact ozone behavior and can influence the detection of turnaround and recovery, we also focus on accounting for ozone variations that may be ascribed to various physical and chemical influences. Thus we include in the statistical trend modeling and analysis the effects of various dynamical and circulation variations in the atmosphere, including those associated with the quasibiennial oscillation (QBO), Arctic Oscillation (AO) and Antarctic Oscillation (AAO), and Eliassen-Palm (EP) flux influences, as well as influences of solar cycle. A notable result of the analysis is that for latitude zones of 40 and above in both hemispheres, large positive and significant estimates of a change in trend (since 1996) are obtained (on the order of 1.5 to 3 DU per year). The dynamic index series, AO/AAO and EP flux, are found to have a substantial influence on total ozone for these higher latitudes, and significant influences of lesser magnitude are also found for lower latitudes. The feature of positive significant change in trend in total ozone over recent years, however, is obtained both without and with the dynamical index terms included in the statistical models.

source

The bbc article, unfortunately, is a bit harder to track down...

Ozone Hole != Global Warming

[mcc]

Carbon Dioxide has no impact on the ozone hole.

The ozone hole, which this article is about, is not connected to the separate problem of global climate change as a result of human-produced greenhouse gases. The ozone hole is also a problem which is easier to deal with; the CFCs and particles which cause ozone layer damage fall out of the atmosphere much faster than carbon dioxide.

Ozone

[Mark of THE CITY]

Who wants ozone? Believe it or not, Los Angeles!

The city water department makes ozone to disinfect drinking water. It produces essentially zero carcinogens compared to chlorine. Because ozone can't be relied on to prevent contamination downstream of the treatment plant, chloramine is added as a final step. Any excess ozone is destroyed by catalytic degradation.

I saw this plant roughly 18 years ago when it was dedicated. It's near Sylmar, and was installed to treat water from the formerly prisine, but now less so, Owens Valley.

CNN: thanks to Ted Turner.

[Elder Entropist]

3) Ted Turner hasn't been intimately involved in what goes on with CNN for a decade (he sold CNN in 1995) and conservative Walter Isaacson moved the network very much to the right when he took over in 2001.

Re:CNN: thanks to Ted Turner.

[demachina]

They've put out a lot of political proclamations in the last day or two to make it look like they are doing something but you can see the situation on the ground and tell they in fact did next to nothing in reality during the first 4 days of the disaster other than the obvious, they did get helicopters in to pluck people off of roof tops. That is the only part of the entire effort that seems to have worked. Only problem is once they were rescued they were dropped in collection areas with no drinking water and are dehydrating.

I heard with interest the head of the Coast Guard describing their work and again search and rescue was great, but much of its resources are going to:

A. Buoy replacement to get commercial shipping flowing again

B. Repairing the off shore oil capacity in the Gulf.

Those things are important, but you can consistently tell the Bush administration is more focused on getting the oil industry back on its feet over keeping thousands of poor blacks in New Orleans alive by getting them fresh water. I certainly want gasoline supplies to stabilize but I imagine I would rather people didn't die of dehydration and from drinking contaminated water because we are busy trying to gettin Exxon and Shell on their feet instead.

The obvious complete failure is FEMA should have requisitioned trucks from all points available and started trucking food and water, especially water to the survivors. Private groups and individuals have started doing it because FEMA failed completely in this most basic obvious part of ANY recovery. They didn't get fresh water in to the disaster area. People can survive a distaster without food for a while but people don't last long without water, and when they get thirsty the drink contaminated water, get sick and die. You would think the Republicans would remember the importance of drinking water from the Terry Schiavo case. You only wish they had placed the same importance on this as they did that. They rush Congress in from all points to pass a pointless resolution about here. Congress hasn't yet reconvened or done anything for New Orleans.

I seem to recall yesterday FEMA saying the supplies were en route but it could easily take four days before they actually started getting distributed because of all the Federal, state and local channels they had to be routed through.

One also has to wonder how much of the National Guard's equipment is in Iraq, for example water treatment plants, water and fuel tankers, trucks in particular. 1/3 to 1/4 of the Guard in the disaster area were unavailable because they are in Iraq, you have to wonder how much of the the equipment vital for disaster relief is there too.

Not sure how it will come out in the post mortem investigation but I saw a post here yesterday in which a study in 2004 indicated the levies in New Orleans were in dire need of repair and the money for their repair had been diverted by the Bush administration from the Army Corps of Engineers to the war in Iraq and to homeland security. If that proves to be the case you can scratch one city thanks to the incompetence of the Bush administration.

Re:CNN: thanks to Ted Turner.

[demachina]

Why don't you read this and come back and see if you stand behind what you said here.

"Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:"

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

"The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain."

Re:I will explain something to you

[Rei]

Cute explanation, but wrong. CFCs have a stratospheric halflife of 70-120 years, and catalyze ozone destruction, thus reducing the steady-state ozone level when balancing solar ozone creation and ozone destruction.

Basically, CFCs long life allows them to reach the stratosphere. There, they slowly break down, releasing a constant supply of chlorine ions. This participates in many reactions, most notably Cl + O3 -> ClO + O2; ClO + O -> Cl + O2. Note that the chlorine ion is still left over. This ion goes on to complete thousands of more reactions before it is ultimately lost (to a variety of mechanisms).

I'll bite (a little)

[shis-ka-bob]

There are serious (peer reviewed) articles from NOAA (see http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/reference/bibliography/20 04/tk0401.pdf and references in it, for example ) that certainly make for a plausible correlation between rising CO2 levels and increasingly severe hurricanes. It is quite a stretch to blame this on GW personally. But his administration is doing practically everything in its power to deny global warming and to delay any action that may be harmful to economics interests. I think he is placing himself squarely on the wrong side of history. Future generations will marvel at our denial of sustainability as a foundation for stable economic systems.

Herbert Hoover wasn't personally responsible for the Great Depression, but he is forever associated with the Crash of '29. In a similar way, Lois XIV is associated with the excess of the French Aristocracy. I hope that Bush isn't associated with the end of the American Century, but I have a sinking feeling that the US is courting disaster. It will not be GW's fault, but he isn't going to be part of the solution either.

Ozone Hole

[lenshead]

Before jumping to too many conclusions about the ozone hole over Antarctica, we should remember it was first observed in 1958 -- a time when CFC use was just beginning. In those days, there was interest in the upper atmosphere and considerable research efforts because of its importance to HF radio communications.

The British Antarctic Survey group that made the observations was expecting to find an ozone hole because of the predictions of their atmospheric model. In 1958, UV spectrometers used vacuum tubes, were big and heavy and carting them to the Antarctic was quite an undertaking. They had good reasons to expect a positive result.

I am not an atmospheric physicist so the following might be a little naive. However, here is my understanding of their theory:

1) Ozone is made primarily at low latitudes
        where vacuum UV has direct access to
        the upper atmosphere. Little vacuum UV
        reaches the atmosphere at high latitudes
        because it has already been absorbed by
        low-latitude air.

2) Ozone reaches high latitude locations
        by the natural convection processes in
        the atmosphere. If the earth did not
        spin, air would rise at the equator
        and fall at the poles, transferring
        the ozone there from the equator.

3) The rotation introduces Coriolis
        force and deflects the movement to
        the "trade wind" pattern we know. It
        also produces a phenomenon called the
        South Atlantic Vortex -- an air-flow
        pattern that greatly reduces
        interchange of air from the equator
        to Antarctica.

4) With little air interchange, there
        should be little ozone over Antarctica.

There is now so much spin surrounding CFCs and Ozone Holes we will probably never learn whether or not their theories were correct. It is not something any atmospheric scientist can afford to challenge and still get his next research grant.

As a final thought consider the business aspects of CFC use. When you go business school, one of the first things you are taught is, "never let your product become generic." When your patents are about to expire, you must find a way of making your old product obsolete and replace it with a new one. Otherwise, generic manufactures will duplicate it for a lower price.

Drug companies frequently keep a few safety studies up their sleeves for this purpose. Of cause, they have a new version of the drug, with some minor changes to an inactive part of the molecule, which fixes the problem.

When NASA rediscovered the Antarctic ozone hole, in the 80s, it was really good news to CFC manufacturers who were facing their own "generic problem." We will never know if their public relations departments helped along the CFC scare but...

Re:No, we don't.

[stnuke]

"I really love George Carlin's routine on the environment. He make a single statement that really brings it all into focus. Are humans so arrogant that we think we can destory the earth let alone save it?"

Well... I think one thing that we have learned is that we *can* destroy the earth. There are probably any number of ways to do it, but we certainly have the ability right now to make it uninhabitable for us in a frighteningly short time.

I mean, really. I don't think that it's an accident that the environmental movement's fixation on the destruction of the planet happened after 1945. Before then, it involved more of a quality-of-life issue or a resources vs. consumption issue, not an apocalyptic endgame scenario. The very visual demonstration of the sheer level of destruction that people were able to perpetrate in the form of the nuclear weapon has changed things. Are you willing to bet that if an industrialized country were to bend its will to the task, it *couldn't* destroy the earth?

Not I. And if somebody figured out a way to do it, the only constant involved would be that it would get cheaper and easier to pull it off as time went forward.

"People who defend sensational scientific beliefs are just as contradictory as religious nuts."

Define sensational. In one sense, evolution is "sensational", yet there's no real controversy there. Some consider quantum mechanics to be "sensational", still others the fact that the earth is greater than 10000 years old.

Sensational is not to my way of thinking a good standard to use. Controversy is too easy to create.

"With the exception of spotting a huge space object heading for the planet, doomsday science can be summarily ignored."

What environmental science is telling us is: there's a pretty good chance that they're right, a miniscule one that they're wrong, and the weight on inaction is huge. You bet.

Re:No, we don't.

[binary paladin]

And when people totally misread what is said and pull out single quotes to misrepresent what was being said, I get sick (nothing personal).

Not once, and I mean not once, did I say we shouldn't clean up our environmental practices. Why? Because I believe we're making a mess of things. I don't need some asshat telling me the seas are going to boil to see that. If you live in any reasonable sized city that sits in a valley (like me) you get a fine taste of why air pollution needs fixing. When I go to buy gas, it becomes obvious why alternative means of energy needs to be looked at. When we see toxic waste and radiation showing immediate signs of cancer and other ill health nastiness, I know we need to stop putting nasty ass chemicals in our food and water.

And let's pretend for a moment that I'm a totally selfish hedonist. Why do I give a fuck about your kids, particularly if I don't have any of my own? They aren't *my* problem. Keep your "for the children" shit to yourself because it's one of the most misused methods of propaganda the world has seen.

"If scientific research sounds too off-center, then it must be wrong, because I am sure nothing really bad can happen to me. "

That's not what was said. I don't care how crazy something sounds. What I do care about is whether or not the science is sound. And I'm sorry, but global warming is not something the scientific world agrees on. Not at all. Let us not forget that we had the opposite theory a few decades ago.

The biggest problem with doomsday science is that, normally, real science requires adequate proof before action takes place. (You know, like field testing medicine before throwing at the public.) However, add the twist, "There's no time! Act now or we all die!" and you can act without real proof. Yeah. Nice going. And even better, the people who do act are our wonderful leaders who will waste money and use this doomsday shit to push tons of unrelated crap.

And let's pretend that I'm a true evolutionist, for just a moment. If we make the environment worse, perhaps we'll evolve into stronger creatures to survive? Or, we'll wipe ourselves out and something stronger will step up to the plate. Why does it matter either way? Honestly, on a purely scientific level what does it matter whether or not we survive as a species? If things go to hell after I'm dead, why will I care? I'm not saying I really think this way, but do you care to answer that? From a cold, purely numbers mentality, if life should continue, shouldn't it be the strongest kind? Isn't that what survival of the fittest is all about?

These future problems don't affect MOST humans--who are selfish pricks. Focus on the here and now and we'll see REAL progress instead of money and time wasted on inconclusive theory that would be solved by fixing the here and now anyway. Dirty air, high gas prices and cancer are much better and more scientifically and economically compelling reasons to clean up our acts environmentally. Doomsday shit isn't.

Read what is said, not what isn't being said. Please. I never attacked environmental reform and clean up efforts. I attacked using inconclusive science for... well... much of anything. The only thing it's good for is paving the way for conclusive science and that's ALL it should be used for.

Re:Easy......

[d34thm0nk3y]

No, the experiment I was aluding to was using ice core samples to determine if ozone depleting chemicals existed in nature before industrialization.

It is easy to figure out when the hole appeared because it happened in the last 100 years or so.

Re:We can't even agree on global warming

[lgw]

There's no evidence that the Earths diminishing magnetic field is related to global warming, but there is a strong correspondence between solar activity and global warming for as long as we have records on both. It's not immediately obvious why solar activity would affect temperatures on Earth (not solar temperature or radiation output, which are nearly constant, but activity such as sunspots).

I do, however, find the disappearance of the Earth's magnetic field quite troubling. Given that it's pretty important to surviving solar radiation to begin with, and is merely a symptom of something even more mysterious happening in the core, it could be quite dangerous. I guess it's not interesting to people who want to use global warming as a weapon for their pet political cause (since it's clearly unrelated to human activity) so it doesn't get any attention.

The Earth's crust more or less floats over the solid inner core, and there's no reason to assume they rotate the same speed or direction. However, if the core changes the speed or direction of it's rotation significantly (some interpretations of the magnetic field changing direction requires this), the planet as a whole will still have to conserve angular momentum, so the crust could be expected to change the speed or direction of its rotation. While the change would only be fast in geological terms, the poles don't have to move much for life to get interesting.

But, of course, we have very little data about the core, so we are left with making computer models which account for the magnetic field changes and guessing which one might have the accurate underlying assumptions.

Re:Why is it?

[Ihlosi]

Because you want the ozone in the upper atmosphere (where it blocks UV radiation), not in the lower atmosphere (where it is pretty toxic).

Re:We can't even agree on global warming

[Ihlosi]

I wish someone would explain to me how the CFC's we are producing on the surface of the earth actually get up to where the Ozone layer is, in the stratosphere.

Diffusion & convection (air currents). Why then do CFC's ignore all the yummy Ozone on the surface and then defy gravity by flying up into the stratosphere and then travel like Arctic Terns to the poles to have their Ozone Buffet?

Very simple. CFCs themselves don't do much to ozone. However, when they are broken up into radicals (for example by, um, UV radiation, of which there's plenty up there in the ozone layer but not so much down here (yet)), the radicals start eating up the ozone.

Re:We can't even agree on global warming

[Rei]

First off, previewing is a good idea, but I'm sure you realized that after the fact. :)

from what?

The early 1970s. Yes, we don't have long-term historical data on its size, but the physics of it are very apparent: we've 5x'ed the amount of Cl- ions in the stratosphere from what they naturally are, so unless nature decided to vary Cl- ions *5fold* before the 1970s, we're doing tremendous damage.

It's the climate change theory that hinges on it

It distinctly *Does Not*. It is a single graph from a single study, no matter how you try and portray it. There are many thousands of studies on global warming in existence. Here's cites for just a few of them.

There are dozens of ice cores alone that have been analyzed for temperature, CO2, and methane. I'm aware of two oceanic sediment cores (a 10,000 year and a 20,000 year) which have been studied, and two lake sediment cores (8,000 years and 13,000 years) - there's probably a heck of a lot more. There are thousands of direct worldwide temperature readings from the mid-1800s to millions in modern times that have been factored in. That covers the entire historical record back to about 180,000 years ago with extensive overlap, with wide precision on the old records and narrow precision on the modern records. What the heck more do you need?

Do these ice cores give us a strong indication of how much CO2 was in the air?

How many times do I have to tell you that they do? CO2 is easy to study in the cores because bubbles of the atmosphere are actually trapped within. Same with methane. Temperature is determined from oxygen isotopic ratios, as oxygen-heavy water evaporation rates as opposed to regular water evaporation are very temperature dependant (there are also other correlating factors on temperature, but lets keep it simple for now).

Anywhere where we have:
  A) Trapped gas, and
  B) A date on the volume that is trapping it,

We can determine the full atmospheric record from the time, barring leakage (which would throw off ratios, determinable by a concordia/discordia plot). We have trapped gas for very long periods of history.