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NASA Announces Record Ozone Hole
Drewsk writes "NASA has announced that the ozone hole over the Antarctic has broken all records. From the story: 'From September 21 to 30, the average area of the ozone hole was the largest ever observed, at 10.6 million square miles,' said Paul Newman, atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. If the stratospheric weather conditions had been normal, the ozone hole would be expected to reach a size of about 8.9 to 9.3 million square miles, about the surface area of North America.""
It had shrunk, up until this time, I was under the (obviously mistaken) impression that it had stayed shrunk.
I'm not a big jumping to conclusions kind of person, but there are signifigant environmental impacts on the creation of new upper atmospheric ozone as well. I think, although I could be wrong, that most atmospheric ozone is created by lightning causing chemical reactions. There could be some relationship there that's gone unaddressed. Regardless, this is hardly good news to hear.
Doesn't that usually happen when you fuck with a hole?
said Paul Newman, atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
/end sarcasm sequencer
Is nothing enough for Paul Newman? It's not enough that he stars in movies with Robert Redford, or that I'm forced to by his Salad Dressings and Microwave Pop-Corn... now I must apparently take his word on the o-zone layer. I suppose in 20 years he'll show up in a computer animated film as some sort of washed-up radio telescope convinced to go for one more shot at the big time.
The article states the following:
"these ozone-depleting substances typically have very long lifetimes in the atmosphere (more than 40 years).
Obsoleting Freon has helped, however it will take tens of years for the existing CFC/HFC/HCFC's etc gas levels to drop to acceptable concentrations.
Excuses Are Like Assholes - Everybody's Got One
RTFA. It kindly mentions that
A) Chlorine, Bromine, and their Ozone cappin' friends stay in the atmosphere for decades. Even with a significant drop in emissions (its precipitousness is reminiscent of the bunny slope) it will be a very long time before significant positive effects accrue. As the article points out, we can expect about 0.1% to 0.2% per year in the near term.
B) This record breaking event is the culmination of several phenomena, including large-scale, seasonal factors that completely overshadow the tiny bit of healing the layer has done in the last few years. "This slow decrease is masked by large year-to-year variations caused by Antarctic stratosphere weather fluctuations."
One thing the article does NOT mention is any cry of "Wolf!". There isn't any environmentalist finger-wagging, just some scientists saying "holy shnikes, take a look at the SIZE of that thing!!"
The ozone we're concerned about here is formed by solar ultraviolet in the stratosphere. Almost all thunderstorm activity is in the troposphere. The ozone that thunderstorms and photochemical smog produce only lasts a few weeks.
Now, if you want to get confused, CFCs are both catalysts of ozone breakdown and greenhouse gases. To make you even more confused, upper tropospheric ozone is a greenhouse gas, not as important as CO2 but worth taking into account.
Something repeatedly bothers me. We act like global warming caused by humans means the end of days, but surely the earth has undergone far more cataclysmic changes (such as after supervolcanoes), even during the lifespan of humanity, and we've lived to tell the tale?
Perhaps it's just now that we're so widely knowledgeable (if not intelligent) about our world at large, we realise just how many people will be outright fucked over by the coming changes. I'm sure humanity will survive, regardless of what happens. Anyone recall Daisyworld and biodiversity versus adverse conditions from biology class?
I for one, am looking forward to our improved sun tanning opportunities. UV kills parasites too. It's win-win here. Ozone layers are over-rated.
...increased cancer for us Australians this year. Not to worry though, in 60 years, whatever skin we have left on our face and arms after the melanomas have been removed will be safe(r).
Dude, if your farts have a "shape" I would recommend some pepto bismol......
Monstar L
Some of us have, anyway.
Sure, the earth has seen some big cataclysms in the past, which haven't wiped out all life on the planet. The big ass meteor that made the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago only wiped out about 90% of all species.
But even within, as you say, the lifespan of humanity, there've been some major catastrophes, that haven't wiped us out. A couple of ice ages, we weathered through (so to speak). And even more recently, plagues, war, famine, huge volcanic eruptions. Sure the human species have survived. Villages, towns, cities, nations, even entire civilizations have been wiped out, but humans survive.
Mostly, I just don't want to be part of one of the civilizations that gets wiped out.
The same can be said about population pressure. The more people there are, the greater the chance some big disease will come along to take care of the problem, or some asshole pushes the button and nukes us back to the stoneage. Either way, nature will adjust. She's just not as picky as I'd like about her methods.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
Sure! Your intuition is far more powerful than 100 years of scien-ma-tific observation.
Although the presence of ozone in the atmosphere has been known for a bit over 100 years, knowledge of the presence of a permanent ozone layer is rather more recent. Man did not reach the south pole until 1912 and did not fly over it until 1929. The first permanent observation station at the south pole was not established until 1957. Meanwhile the ability measure the thickness of the ozone layer, from either ground or satellite is concurrent with the discovery of the ozone hole. Mid 70s through mid 80s. Although ballons have been flying into the stratosphere for a couple ticks over 100 years, we only got a good idea of its structure in the mid 80s when we sent up an instrumented U2. OP is right to the extent that we really know squat all about the history of the ozone layer.
Go back to eighth grade science class, then come back and post on slashdot.
I had just finished my undergraduate studies in physics when we first started acurately measuring the thickness of the ozone layer indirectly; and thus being able actually map it. Perhaps you have the advantage on me of only recently being out of the eighth grade.
KFG
certainly not for those of us who have to live under it.
I live in New Zealand, the current position and shape of the ozone hole is a regular feature of TV weather reports.
"NASA Announces Record Ozone Hole"
- Yes, but will it be available in retail before the holiday shopping season? What will availability be?
- Can it run Lunix? Duke Nukem 4? NetBSD? Can I make a beowulf out of them?
- Shouldn't we wait for Rev. B?
- Why didn't they mention any pricing in the article? It's totally a vaporware mock-up, like that keyboard!
- Did they use clean energy to manufacture it?
- Isn't the one from RKA/ESA/JAXA superior? NASA only makes hoaxes anyway -- Was this "ozone hole" actually on a sound stage in Nevada?
There are two possibilities that don't defy logic:
I am a scientist trained at the undergraduate level (so I claim no authority). They beat statistics into us. I now read things with my statistical-skeptic hat on. Here's my problem: .2% decline only matters if there is a margin of error that is small enough for .2% to be significant.
Let us say, for argument's sake, that the error in our readings is around 3%. We then model the system and have check it against the data that we have. Is there any way for us to have enough data to make the statement that we expect a .2% improvement? Statistics come with confidences. I'd be shocked if the confidence level on this data is above 50%.
Does anyone have any insight here?
If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: there is no God, and Dirac is his Prophet. -Pauli
"She's just not as picky as I'd like about her methods."
The problem is, when most people say this, by "discerning" or "picky", they automatically assume that THEY would be part of the population favored by such choice...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Something repeatedly bothers me. We act like global warming caused by humans means the end of days, but surely the earth has undergone far more cataclysmic changes (such as after supervolcanoes), even during the lifespan of humanity, and we've lived to tell the tale?
Oh yes, we have survived. But barely. According to the Toba Catastrophe Theory the Lake Toba eruption reduced the total number of human beings to 1000-10000. We also survived the plague, which killed of a third of Europe's population in the middle ages.
But surviving doesn't mean a walk in the park. Yes. We would survive sea levels rising a couple of feet. I live in Holland and we've been fighting the water for centuries. Now, we're more prosperous than ever so we'll be able to build the dykes. But countries like Bangladesh (which floods like every two years already) would be in serious trouble and would not be able to do a thing about it.
Perhaps it's just now that we're so widely knowledgeable (if not intelligent) about our world at large, we realise just how many people will be outright fucked over by the coming changes. I'm sure humanity will survive, regardless of what happens. Anyone recall Daisyworld and biodiversity versus adverse conditions from biology class?
You are right if bare survival is your criterium of success. But I'd prefer to aim a little higher than that.
Oh and of course I am aware that I'm talking about global warming, which has very little to do with the hole in the ozone layer. But the point remains valid.
no-one has ever explained how CFC molecules which are much heavier than air, can rise up in the stratosphere, travel all of the way to Antarctica before being broken down into chlorine and fluorine and reacting the O3
Maybe not, but they're there. All the same tools that tell us whats in other planets' atmospheres works equally well on our own. Further more, as surprising as it may be, if you lay down on the ground, you're not likely to asphyxiate unless someone dumps a sufficient amount of a heavy gas right next to you, since the atmosphere mixes up rather easily. As for how they move, I'm going to suggest things like the Jet Stream for moving them around the planet, and equatorial heating to carry CFCs into the upper atmosphere and down towards the pole.
Chlorine in the ice
Interesting theory. Where did the chlorine come from? A molecule of Cl2 (total atomic mass 71) is more massive than N2 (28), O2 (32), and CO2 (44), or does "too heavy" only count when it's you saying it? Could it possibly be that the Cl in your ice is the same Cl in CFCs?
thus turning your refrigerator into a potential BOMB.
Aside from someone else already pointing out that it's not benzene, I guess you're too young to remember the days of early ammonia refrigerators, now those were the BOMB!
I don't think the severity of the Ozone hole, regardless of its fundermental underlying causes, can really be accepted or apprecciated by any-one living in the Northern Hemisphere. Its appears to be something akin to "Ah well, that sound bads, nevermind" BUT .. Anyone living in Australia or especially New Zealand, the coutries on the edge of the hole, know too well what it will mean for them this summer...and it not pretty.
With the highest rates of melanoma skin cancer in the world due to the lack of UV protecting Ozone and predominantly clean air. These two countries bear the full brunt of the impact of the hole. At the height of summer, sunburn can occur in as little as 6 minutes!! of sun exposur. Anyone outside without SPF30+ sunscreen, glasses, a shirt and a hat should be considered a fool. This is what its like to live with a hole in the Ozone above your country.
If this is what is was like above your country in summer, when you would just like to enjoy yourself and "Catch some rays, down at the beach". You certainly wouldn't be arguing about how it was cause or who caused it, you'rd be trying to find a way to fix it!
Sometimes, I wish the hole could be moved to somewhere move deserving.
My God where did you get your meteorology degree?
Tropospheric ozone is created by many things but is very reactive and does not last long. Lightning does produce ozone in the troposphere as does certain chemical reactions between anthropogenic pollutants.
Stratospheric ozone is created when high-energy ultraviolet light from the sun splits diatomic oxygen (O2) into oxygen atoms (O) which can combine with O2 to create O3. UV also splits O3 into O and O2, and there is constant creation/destruction of O3 in the strasophere. It reaches an eqilibrium which is a function of a bunch of things, but the end result is (a) the creation/destruction of O3 in the stratosphere "absorbs" the most energetic UV from the sun (which is good for life) and (b) this process heats up the stratosphere, making it one big inversion which has the nice side-effect of keeping thunderstorm updrafts from blasting into the mesosphere.
In order to undertsand why there is an ozone "hole" over Antarcitca you have to understand about the dynamics of the atmosphere. Most ozone is actually created in the tropical latitudes and is advected southward/northward via the Hadley Cell circulation. The polar vortex over Antarctica tends to inhibit mixing across its boundary, so stuff that gets in it tends to stay there. Ozone depletion due to CFCs tends to be greatest around this time of year when the Antarctic is entering Spring and the sun is beginning to interact with polar stratospheric clouds which are a major catalyst to the ozone depletion.
Anyone could look this stuff up in a recent undergraduate meteorology textbook. Just about all of the "Mod 5 : informative" posts in this thread are laughingly incorrect.
Same goes to the douche who thinks "CFCs are too heavy to get into the Stratosphere". I'm not going to bother to explain that one to you.
And finally, don't ever mention "global warming" and "ozone hole" in the same sentence as if they are related. They are not.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
Freon is much more dense than air. Rotting devices in landfills are not getting CFC's into the upper atmosphere. I'd look to substances with significantly more potential to end up there, like jet fuel burnoff, as being the source of ozone troubles.
Same goes to the douche who thinks "CFCs are too heavy to get into the Stratosphere". I'm not going to bother to explain that one to you.
.9%). If the heaviest gases simply sunk to the bottom, we would be suffocated by argon near the ground and all of the nitrogen would be on the top of the atmosphere, with the oxygen in the middle.
Actually, I'd really like to hear an explanation. I'm not going to claim to know anything about CFC's, but if these gases really are heavier than air and don't readily mix with air, how exactly does a bucket of them in my back yard elevate itself to the upper atmosphere?
Think of it this way: What is "air" in the first place? To a good approximation within the troposphere, it's a mixture of molecular oxygen (molecular weight = 32 grams/mol, 21%), molecular nitrogen (MW = 28 g/mol, 78%) and argon (MW = 40 g/mol,
The troposphere (tropos in Latin means "turning" or "mixing") is well-mixed and the relative ratio of the three aforementioned permanent gaes to one another is constant. If you introduce a heavier gas (higher MW) it will still get mixed into the lighter gases over time due to the winds. Brownian motion will also cause heavier gases to diffuse in a calm environment.
CFCs will spread laterally across the globe by the horizontal winds. Whenever there is a strong thunderstorm, updrafts will slam air, which originates near the ground, into the tropopause, the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere. Very strong updrafts can intrude into the bottom of the stratosphere where the tropospheric air mixes into the stratosphere. Once something gets into the stratosphere (if it's got a very small terminal velocity - think about strong volcanoes spewing ash) it tends to stick around because the stability of the stratosphere is so high (due to the temperature inversion I mentioned before).
Back to "heavier gases" for a moment. It is true that if you "pour" a heavy gas onto the ground it will spread out before mixing. There have been cases where CO2 (MW = 34) has seeped out of the ground and spread laterally, suffocating people (google Lake Nyos). But given a few hours of typical winds, the heavier gas will be diluted and over time mixes into the rest of the atmosphere, contributing slightly towards the atmosphere's own average molecular weight.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?