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Antarctic Ozone Hole Shrinks 30 Percent
polar red sends us news of a story that many outlets have picked up from a European Space Agency press release: the Antarctic ozone hole is 30% smaller than it was during the previous record year. It's still about the size of North America. "Scientists say this year's smaller hole... is due to natural variations in temperature and atmospheric dynamics... and is not indicative of a long-term trend. 'Although the hole is somewhat smaller than usual, we cannot conclude from this that the ozone layer is recovering already,' [one researcher said]."
be embarrassing if the hole was just the result of variations in various decades long solar cycles, after all we haven't been observing it for very long. we may have gone environmentally apeshit for no reason with regards to FHCs.
There is not precise proof that CFCs causes ozone hole. There is only conjecture and hypothesis that is substantiated by biased studies. The Earth spews more environmentally dangerous gases and chemicals that man can EVER produce. The even think that man has the power to change the climate or environment of the whole planet is a sign of arrogance beyond belief.
Now, on that note, man does have the power to effect small areas (small relative to the size of the Earth) of the environment. One example is the wasteland created by the miming and manufacturing of batteries for hybrid cars. Another is the air around the city of Beijing.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Goodness. It can't be more than a month or two ago I either read or heard (documentary/news) that the ozone layer was clearly in much better shape and giving the Montreal Protocol credit for it.
I guess this is a prime example of why I couldn't care less about the current environment/global warming hysteria. Hopefully they'll eventually calm down and start to make sense, as in talking as if they actually thought things through instead of the current knee jerk reactions. It's just political "look, we care!" posturing at the moment.
For example, the total car pool of the country I live in apparently contribute something like 0.000000012% of yearly man made CO2 emissions. Yet it's virtually the only thing politicians talk about. Way to shift focus away from there being a huge energy production boost to be gained from our hydropower plants by updating the turbines, thus reducing dependency on importing power produced by oh so environmentally friendly coal power plants.
Another example is an article that stated "we don't understand why the ice is melting as quickly as it is, it defies all our models", then later in the same article "there can be no doubt this is caused by mankind".
I think the truth is infinitely closer to "we don't have a clue but it sure gives us lots of column space" than anything else. Doesn't hurt to be conscious of our emissions and work to reduce them either way, but the way the politicians and media is handling this is hurting more than helping imo. I'm not the only one that stopped caring long ago.
Holes in the Ozone layer were caused by CFCs, which chemically are interesting compounds, but one problem of which is that they were depleting the ozone layer. CFCs are not a central part of the economy however, they can be, and have been substituted, and nowadays if things go on track the ozone layer should repair itself within a few decades. The manufacturers are already using the substitutes so there is not much of a lobby out there to use CFCs again.
Global warming is another matter. The international scientific consensus is it is mostly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, releasing gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to the greenhouse effect and global warming. This strikes at the heart of multi-national corporations, necessitating either less usage of energy, or very expensive research on how to burn fuel cleaner, with higher CAFE standards and the like. A look at the Fortune 500, #2 Exxon-Mobil, #3 GM, #4 Chevron, #5 ConocoPhillips show how incredibly powerful the forces that this threatens the profits of on some level. Not only do they have control of vast sums of money, and have a large amount of political power, they also are quite good at shaping hegemony - they have a heavy influence on what people think about these issues.
I am not really a tree-hugger, but I have no trust of these companies and believe they are quite capable of radically screwing up the environment for a long time all for a short-term profit. What scares me is not people killed in Bhopal and whatnot - what scares me is how screwed up Connecticut beaches are due to oil leaks. Bhopal is a poor city in a relatively poor country - Connecticut is the richest (highest per capita income) state in the richest country in the world. If corporations can get away with destroying New Haven's environment, I fear the future. I don't think the world is in danger, but things could get messed up (New Orleans flood etc.)
Apparently the "natural variations in temperature" argument holds up for the ozone layer when it's recovering, but is heresy when applied to global warming? Well, on the bright side (no pun intended), at least I have one more reason to be very, very skeptical about the "scientists" who believe so religiously in the imminent doom of mankind.
It's the chase for the almighty bottom line again. Climate researchers generate very little, if any, income from their research... operating costs and salaries have to be paid...urban heat islands... nobody's actually done research... whip up panic... grants and contracts to the climate researchers... flogged the increase in the ozone hole for years now... now that it shrinks, they have to downplay the event... causing the research money to dry up... they have to discount the recent evidence that contradicts all their carefully-crafted theories in order to keep paranoia high and money coming in.
I know that in your universe, scientists drive around in pink Cadillacs screaming "M-Fer, I want more research funding and iced tea!", but in the one I inhabit, climate researchers usually point to ozone hole shrinkage as a success story: we changed our behavior and it actually produced noticeable results in the atmosphere.
Global cooling gave way to overpopulation, which gave way to the hole in the ozone, which now passed on to global warming. If I was old enough, I'm sure I'd recognize what came before those too...help me out, fill in the timeline :)
Duck and Cover
The way we watch climatic changes like that of the ozone layers is like an obsessive celebrity reporter tracking Britney Spears' weight. If she gains ten pounds in a year, that doesn't mean she'll be 300 pounds by the time she hits 35. Things fluctuate, and the ozone layer is no different. For use to think we can accurately determine the future of the ozone layer simply by analyzing it over fifty years, which is microscopic by climatic standards, is very arrogant.
Well..I'm just gunna go out on a limb here and guess that the consequences of the hole getting bigger are many orders of magnitude worse than the consequences of the hole getting smaller. But hey, that's just my guess.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Though it seems to have escaped the public, the ozone depletion problem was solved with the ratification of the Montreal Protocol.
So what's the story? Well, don't put away the SPF-1000 sunscreen yet if you're going to be near the poles. Scientist projections estimated it would take several decades for the earth to fully repair itself. Sometime by 2040, IIRC. The rub with this 30% shrink is that it's way ahead of schedule.
I'm no scientist, but to me this sounds like something worth investigating.
All these are important issues, but only tangentially related to the question of whether Australians will get skin cancer from an hour spent outside.
They can wear sunscreen, which is a good idea even in areas not under the ozone hole.
Personally, I've heard for years about the dangers of ozone emissions from gasoline, etc. Maybe the ozone from those has finally made its way up to the upper atmosphere.
I've always thought it interesting that ozone is considered essential in the upper atmosphere; yet is considered pollution at ground level. That and I've always wondered how many of the 'ozone depleting' chemicals are capable of making it that high. Most of the ones I've seen are fairly heavy gases, that should tend to stay fairly low.
That and I wonder if the hole might not be a more or less natural phenomenon. After all, we discovered the hole pretty much when we first started measuring the ozone layer.
I agree with the parent - there are many, many chemical disasters that we should spend more effort on cleaning up rather than concentrating on this.
I don't read AC A human right
The prophets of 1970 said:
The world would be covered in ice by now.
As for saying that the ozone hole would get larger
According to the World Meteorological Organization's 2006 assessment report on ozone depletion,
"By 2005, the total combined abundance of anthropogenic ozone-depleting gases in the troposphere had decreased by 8-9% from the peak value observed in the 1992-1994 time period. The overall magnitude of this decrease is attributable to the estimated changes in emissions and is consistent with the known atmospheric lifetimes and our understanding of transport processes."
I'm sure the WMO must be populated by renegade scientists who disagree with the majority findings.
Anyway, they also note,
"The shorter-lived gases (e.g., methyl chloroform and methyl bromide) continue to provide much of the decline in total combined effective abundances of anthropogenic chlorine-containing and bromine-containing ozone-depleting gases in the troposphere. The early removal of the shorter-lived gases means that later decreases in ozone-depleting substances will likely be dominated by the atmospheric removal of the longer-lived gases."
In other words, when we cut CFC emissions, we saw a significant and almost immediate change in trend as the short-lived CFCs were removed from the atmosphere (and we failed to replenish them). Now that the low-hanging fruit are gone, we're going to see a more gradual decrease in the future, as the longer-lived CFCs slowly disappear.
There are plenty of studies supporting these statements if you care to dig through the full report.
P.S. You also appear to be confusing atmospheric chemists with climatologists. There is some overlap, but mostly the ozone hole guys are not climatologists per se.
What really happened (assuming my memory can be trusted) is that Sagan et al. came out with the idea of a nuclear winter that would result from a global thermonuclear exchange, and it played a big role in the anti-nuclear-arms movement. But it also got scientists thinking about the effects of putting trash in the atmosphere, and that's when they realized that greenhouse gasses might be a problem. And there has been a steady accumulation of research since then that consistently indicates that they were right. (Hardly a surprise, since it is beyond doubt that we are putting incredible amounts of stuff into the atmosphere, and the concept of greenhouse gasses is based on our rigorous understanding of physics.)
Also there's an aside about the hypothetical Ice Age that is worth mentioning. There is still at least one scientist who thinks we'd be chilling out if greenhouse gasses weren't counterbalancing it. He had an article in Scientific American a few years ago, giving numbers on both side of the balance sheet (in watts per square meter), showing that the warming is about twice what is needed to cancel out the cooling.
I don't know how his claims have stood up among scientists, but it shows that at least once scientist thinks global cooling might be in play even today. You do sometimes see reports that show a balance sheet between warming and cooling effects, though I've never seen anyone else mention the threat of an Ice Age.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade