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Signs of Ozone Layer Recovery Detected
polar red writes "22 years of banning CFCs is starting to pay off. Researchers have finally been able to measure a reduction in size of the ozone layer hole, after finding the source of its fluctuations. 'Salby's results reveal a fast decline in ozone levels until the late 1990s, then a slow rebound that closely matches what theoretical calculations had predicted, says David Karoly, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne, Australia. "It is the sort of result that was expected, but is the first to provide detection of an increase in Antarctic ozone levels," he says.'"
Why is it that the scientists can detect an ozone hole, provide a fix, show that the fix solved the problem, and then be LOUDLY IGNORED by the liars in congress.
Oh. The CFL manufacturers had less money than the oil people. Sorry. I forgot...
Haven't you heard? The end is tomorrow.
Carl Sagan quotes get you an automatic +5 on all posts.
Now maybe we can start using CFCs again, and stop with these inferior coolants.
*puts on sunglasses*
Don't hold your breath.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>the more you raise the cost of living, the more people go into poverty. This is incorrect. If you look today at just the quantity, there are more people living below the poverty line than 20 years ago but as a percentage it is much smaller. Generally the standards of living increase, even for the poorest. For example millions of more people have access to cleaner drinking water than they did a short time ago.
You're absolutely right, AC. We will. The only question is: why.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
No, abuse of governmental power is the exception in our nation. The problem is one of perspective and that any abuse is a very terrible thing. Check African nations if you want to see countries where abuse is the rule. Also, don't confuse government powers that are disagreeable with abuse of power. The Department of Homeland Security, although the number 1 contender for my list of most corrupt agencies, is not itself governmental abuse. Warrentless phone tapping is, but that's ultimately a tiny part of what our government or the DoHS actually does.
I haven't seen anyone propose "world government" for the solution to global warming. The solution put forward has been for countries to agree to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions will increase costs, but effects of global warming will increase costs, too. The debate is what amount of spending on reducing carbon dioxide emissions will minimize total costs.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
too bad tomorrow is the end.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I haven't read and cant give specific evidence... but neither can you. That should have told you to go do some research and make an informative post, but instead, you've decided to maintain your ignorance and maintain ours to boot.
Oh wait, ten seconds on google and you could have seen: http://www.ozonelayer.noaa.gov/science/basics.htm
Go read it!
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
In a nutshell, because the thermal, i.e. kinetic energy of atmospheric molecules is way too high to get separation by weight. They are moving in random directions too fast to settle down. As for the ozone layer being where it is, yes, it is being produced up there. The layer is a dynamic process - ozone being produced from oxygen by UV activation and reacting back. You get the layer at a certain height where you have the right balance of O2 concentration and UV intensity. CFCs are a catalyst that shift that equilibrium to the side of oxygen, removing the conditions that lead to the dynamic formation of the layer in the first place.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
The future's so bright!
I drank what? -- Socrates
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/ozone-hole-gone/
Maybe not.
The natural cycle of the ozone extent may have just shifted to the increasing phase of the cycle.
Maybe, like "global warming" it was just a power grab for commercial reasons.
We have no long term data on the ozone hole, it could have been waxing and waning for millennia.
The purported physics and chemistry of CFCs may have seemed plausible (like the idea that CO2 traps heat), but they real system may be too complex for such simple models. C02 doubling increases temperatures only a degree or so, and any scare scenarios are based on controversial and unproven feed back mechanisms. Some of which may be negative according to some recent research.
Alright, two informative posts, way to go science!
Because our bodies cease to function if certain requirements are not met. The more interesting questions are: How? And when?
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Your desired level of proof is absurd. Your test is not falsifiable.
Also, stats are unable to lie or tell the truth. They are data, nothing more, but also nothing less. It is we humans who accept 1 interpretation of the data that are at fault.
Nice crackpot you found there. My favourite - his acid rain piece. "Decades of monitoring to detect an effect". Right. Tell that to the deforested mountain ridges in my home county that have recovered just fine after SO2 was essentially removed from coal plant exhaust. As for that nature reference - you conveniently omit that this is not a paper, but a news blurb. Serious papers on the issue? Well, rather thin in that department. I met Paul Crutzen on several occasions and had some nice talks with him. Calling him a tool of special interest lobbying is quite... off the mark.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Global warming is caused by the emission of gases, mostly CO2, but also CFC replacements that are 1000s of times more potent than CO2.
Fixed that for ya. Apparently Nature doesn't provide free lunches :(
No, you fixed nothing, you just failed to take into account numbers.
CO2 isn't harmful just because it's a global warming gas. It's so harmful because it's emitted in several orders of magnitude more than other gases.
Another gas may be 1000 times more potent, but if only a billionth as much as CO2 is being emitted, then so what?
Fucking troll.
Mechanizes, evidence and prediction. They all came true. This is exactly what was predicted.
It was CFC, and I am sick and tired of you poor excuses for a limp wristed cum stains not even bothering to look at the research and data, yes still thinking your opinion on the matter deserves equal weight in the matter. You're opinion deserves no weight on this matter, and it is provable wrong.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
your willingness to whore for the deniers shows you to be devoid of any shame. Care to try another excuse to avoid accepting responsibility?
SO2 is insofar part of the subject in question as the crackpot mentioned above rants about acid rain not existing in the quoted blog. As for the references. Yes, ClOOCl photolysis under stratospheric conditions modelled in the lab is by a factor 6 lower than previously predicted. So? To quote the abstract of the paper in question: "This large discrepancy calls into question the completeness of present atmospheric models of polar ozone depletion" - true that. At no point, the basic mechanism is questioned, though. To quote the part of Rex' quote you conveniently omitted: "Overwhelming evidence still suggests that anthropogenic emissions of CFCs and halons are the reason for the ozone loss.". In summary - you and the crackpot above take part of the usual scientific process, which is characterized by continuous refinement of models, out of context and construct a fundamental disagreement from it, which never existed in the first place. Basic propaganda tool.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
As someone else said the atmosphere isn't stationary long enough for the constituent elements to separate into layers by weight. It's like asking why sediment in moving water doesn't settle out immediately.
Also consider this, Ozone is also a product of combustion products (smog) being mixed with high temperatures air (summer). Ozone is actually a pollutant monitored by the clean air act that LA frequently violates in the summer. So why doesn't all that ozone float up and fill the hole in? Because if it's not exactly the right environment the ozone is destroyed, it's a very unstable molecule of oxygen. It's the reason the R-12 refrigerant could get up there and catalyze O3 back to O2 for 20 some odd years before the R-12 molecule was destroyed. Ozone is easily destroyed, it's also highly toxic (one reason they use it in water purification where taste is important enough to justify the cost).
that your opinions are of no concern to the adults around here.
The little guy in this case being the multinational conglomerates that produced it and lobbied their asses off to prevent the banning. You are an idiot. The evidence and proof of CFC's destroying the ozone layer is in the science journals. It involves thousands of research projects including sampling the layer (including the CFC's in it) to year on year measurements to the simple chemical reaction formula that shows it's possible. It was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to the entire community of scientists involved in the discipline.
If you can't be bothered to read the journals yourself, nor trust the expects then why don't you go live in a cave somewhere and spend your time trying to figure out how Apollo carries the torch across the sky without burning his hands. Because that's how fucking ignorant you are, flat earth, gods throwing lighting bolts kind of stupid.
He's not even desiring a level of proof, he finishes the discussion with a good old argument from incredulity. Which is the weakest of all fallacies.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
I doubt that your hypothesis of mere thermal energy preventing separation by weight is correct. It's likely that an isolated column of air would separate by weight. As long is there isn't macroscopic circulation to stir the air (wind, jet stream, etc.), there can be stratification by temperature such that freezing occurs in a valley but not half way up an adjacent hill. There have been cases of people dying by asphyxiation when a volcanic vent produced a lot of CO2, which settled down to a nearby lake, driving up the oxygen away from the ground. People near the lake were SOL due to separation of atmospheric gasses by density.
Buy some dry ice and dump it into a tub of water, and watch where the (denser) fog goes.
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CFCs effects on ozone are well documented. But the potential widespread use of H2 as an alternative 'clean' energy is not often associated with its effects on O3. Hydrogen is quite reactive with O3 and can cause severe problem by causing excessive cooling in the upper atmosphere. Lest we forget that the ozone hole over Antarctica is partially due to extreme cold in the upper atmosphere.
I tried to read your post, but your grammar and spelling made in unintelligible.
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Depends on the molecular species in question - e.g. hydrogen will reach escape velocity just from the thermal velocity distribution. You are completely right that I neglected convective mixing in the post above, which of course is a strong effect. If you release a lot of heavy gas at once, yes, you get layering. But even that might diffuse out given the long timescales which you need to take into account when talking about the atmosphere as whole. I just wanted to give the nutshell presentation. It's nearly 2 am here, I am drunk and will be raptured in 4 hours, so bear with me ;)
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
The SO2 and trees are relevant because they are another article by the same person. While it is possible for some truth to be found in a forest of lies, it's not a good place to go looking for it.
That said, there were a lot of errors made by those who proclaimed that acid rain was a serious problem. In addition, there was plenty of reason to reduce sulphur emissions beyond the fact that SO2 forms suphurous acid: SO2 is a poison by itself, as is H2S in sufficient concentration.
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One thing that I never got was how an volcano in Antartica actively emitting hydrogen chlorine cannot contribute to stratospheric chlorine. Anywhere else, HCl would just stick to a water droplet and rain down, but we are talking about the most arid continent on earth, with very little precipitation.
1. CFC's are much denser than air. The lightest possible CFC, which would be CH2FCl, would have an atomic weight around 62, much heavier than N2 at 28. How can something that wants to stay so close to the ground, even in the presence of normal Brownian motion, affect something so high up?
It is likely for the same reason that short people don't suffocate despite the fact that C02 has a molecular weight of 42 g/mol while oxygen weighs in at only 15.
The chlorine from CFCs are supposedly effective at destroying the ozone layer.
But what about the humongous amount of chlorine from salt in the seawater,
that gets into the atmosphere from wave froth? I would think that was much
more.
If you are so helpful, I will ask about something that has bothered me for a while:
Most of the CFC was produced in the northern hemisphere. Assuming the weather systems of both hemispheres are pretty much separated, why is it that there is a much bigger ozone hole over the southern pole than over the northern pole? I would assume the reverse would be true.
To all the anti-deniers: I don't doubt the fact that CFC caused the ozone hole. It is just that this is a small issue I would like to understand more clearly. If you can't give me a straight answer w/o using curse words, I would ask you to refrain from answering. Thanks!
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
The difference between the North Polar region and the South Polar region is that the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land and covered by ice and Antarctica is land surrounded by ocean with ice sheets built up on it. It's considerably colder in Antarctica. The two regions are not really very comparable when you get into details. The Wikipedia article on ozone depletion has an explanation about the cause of the ozone hole. The northern hemisphere atmosphere and southern hemisphere atmosphere are somewhat separated but not completely which only affects how long it takes for full mixing to occur.
Pedantically speaking it's not the R-12 (or other CFC's) that cause the ozone to break down. What happens is UV radiation breaks down the R-12 freeing the chlorine atoms which catalyzes the breakdown of ozone.
The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season was the 3rd most active on record and I heard on the new today that they're predicting another active one this year.
I'd love to see you provide cites to Phil Jones saying any of the things you attribute to him. You can't find them.
Don't forget the sunscreen. I sure as hell wouldn't want to get a sunburn there.
That's where it gets somewhat complicated. While I have a pretty good grasp of the chemistry involved, I am a dilettante when it comes to atmospheric dynamics on the large scale. The stratospheric conditions over Antarctica seem to be particularly good for activating chlorine compounds into the catalytically active ClO-radicals. Cooling of the air in winter leads to sinking of the air masses which then, via the coriolis effect, form a very stable vortex that lasts into summer. This polar vortex isolates the antarctic stratosphere. Polar stratospheric clouds form and are confined to the antarctic region by the dynamics of this vortex. The particles in these clouds, water ice and nitric acid, help with the formation of active chlorine compounds. Due to confinement by the vortex, these compounds get not diluted out and lead to strong ozone depletion as soon as the sun comes up again. Over the arctic, this confinement effect is lower, so the clouds get "diluted out" - they only can form in the extreme cold, so less active chlorine is formed and the arctic effect is weaker. That's it in a nutshell.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
O3 in the stratosphere in the ozone layer is created mostly by UV radiation causing an O2 molecule to split into 2 free oxygen atoms which then each link up with another O2 molecule to form O3.
Come on you knee-jerk nigas, say it witme, correlationisnotcausation, What! Am I's suddenly wrong! Lighten up.
Awesome, does this mean I can start using aerosol hair spray again?
We need to get China and India to stop this. China a LONG history of not caring about the environment. The issue is that they will continue this because it is profitable to them. Even now, it is growing 15% a year, which is INSANE.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Thermal energy is enough to change the equilibrium of the gases into one where they are mixed. But out of equilibrium (most importantly when there is any temperature gradient), things are way more complex.
Also, you can separate gases in a series of tubes just by their weight difference, it is just way more complex than separating liquids or solids, because they'll mix a lot more.
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