Ozone Layer Improving Faster Than Expected

SpaceAdmiral writes "Since the implementation of the Montreal Protocol, which limited ozone-destroying gasses like CFCs, the Earth's ozone layer has been recovering. However, new studies show that the ozone in the lower stratosphere is actually recovering faster than the Montreal Protocol alone can explain." From the article: "It's a complicated question. CFCs are not the only things that can influence the ozone layer; sunspots, volcanoes and weather also play a role. Ultraviolet rays from sunspots boost the ozone layer, while sulfurous gases emitted by some volcanoes can weaken it. Cold air in the stratosphere can either weaken or boost the ozone layer, depending on altitude and latitude. These processes and others are laid out in a review just published in the May 4th issue of Nature: 'The search for signs of recovery of the ozone layer' by Elizabeth Westhead and Signe Andersen."

Comments

Re:They got it wrong from the beginning

[JasonAWallwork]

It's not like CFCs are fine now according to the article,

In the upper stratosphere (above roughly 18 km), ozone recovery can be explained almost entirely by CFC reductions. "Up there, the Montreal Protocol seems to be working," says co-author Mike Newchurch of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

And later in the same article:

Sorting out cause and effect is difficult, but a group of NASA and university researchers may have made some headway. Their new study, entitled "Attribution of recovery in lower-stratospheric ozone," was just accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research. It concludes that about half of the recent trend is due to CFC reductions.

Secondly, the Montreal Protocol was about the ozone depletion in other areas like Northern Europe and Canada, not just the hole over Antactica.

If one wants to argue that ozone depletion was nothing to worry about or some kind of myth, one needs to refer to sources beyond this article since that's not what it says.

Re:Doesn't ANYBODY remember the 80s?

[Lemmy Caution]

The people in the southern reaches of the southern hemisphere do not think it is a hoax: the incidence of skin cancer mushroomed in southern Chile as the hole in the ozone increased. Not the end of the world, but a real and ongoing health hazard.

You were wrong.

[mcc]

If the hole has been recovering since then why are scientists blaming mankind for the current increase in temperatures.

Because the ozone hole and global warming are two totally separate phenomena. They are both caused by pollution, but different kinds of pollution-- in simple terms, the ozone hole is caused by CFCs, global warming is caused by greenhouse gases. In the 80s, we stopped using CFCs, and since CFCs take a few decades to fall out of the atmosphere, now that a few decades have passed the ozone hole is starting to get better. In the 80s we did not stop our emission of greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide), so global climate change / global warming is still getting worse.

Of course, carbon dioxide takes longer to fall out of the atmosphere than CFCs, so even if we entirely ceased carbon dioxide emissions tomorrow (which we probably couldn't even if we really wanted to without bringing civilization to its knees) we shouldn't expect to see things returning to normal for maybe a couple hundreds of years. But at least we could stop making things worse.

Repairing the ozone hole is not helping global warming for the same reason that if your computer's power supply is on fire, you cannot fix this by reinstalling Windows. If you thought that repairing the ozone hole would stop global warming, it is because you are confused.