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Thanks To the Montreal Protocol, We Avoided Severe Ozone Depletion

hypnosec writes: Scientists say the ozone layer is in good shape thanks to the Montreal Protocol, which has helped us avoid severe ozone depletion. Research suggests that the Antarctic ozone hole would have been 40% bigger by now if not for the international treaty. "Our research confirms the importance of the Montreal Protocol and shows that we have already had real benefits. We knew that it would save us from large ozone loss 'in the future', but in fact we are already past the point when things would have become noticeably worse," lead author Professor Martyn Chipperfield, from the School of Earth & Environment at the University of Leeds, said in a press release.

36 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Montreal Protocol? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Scientists say the ozone layer is in good shape thanks to the Montreal Protocol

    Scientists schmientists. What does Congress have to say?

    1. Re:Montreal Protocol? by jc42 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Scientists say the ozone layer is in good shape thanks to the Montreal Protocol

      Scientists schmientists. What does Congress have to say?

      "Vote for me."

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    2. Re:Montreal Protocol? by jc42 · · Score: 2

      Skip the middlemen and ask the Koch brothers.

      And here we have another "troll" mod to this comment, from a reader without a sense of humor.

      (Actually, the Koch brothers might not be predictable in this case, since it'd depend on how much they had invested in the companies that manufactured the old, damaging refrigerants. And they might be aware of how easily society reversed that atmospheric problem with relatively little economic effect, so they might want to be careful about getting people comparing it with the effects of our CO2 output. ;-)

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  2. Montreal Protocol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Saving you the click:

    The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (a protocol to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer) is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. It was agreed on September 16, 1987, and entered into force on January 1, 1989, followed by a first meeting in Helsinki, May 1989. Since then, it has undergone eight revisions

  3. Re:Thanks Canada by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 3, Funny

    Finally they found a use for poutine! :)

  4. Re:Of course the extreme ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The solar "extremes" are a variance of 0.1% total output over a 11 year cycle so you are quite correct - solar output lows had nothing to do with it.

  5. Re:Ozone layer is recovering by haruchai · · Score: 5, Informative

    The hottest decade on record is the last one and significantly warmer than the '80s & 90s.
    Try reading article next time - depletion happens more quickly in COLDER winters.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  6. Re:Ozone layer is recovering by skids · · Score: 5, Informative

    No one seems to address that possibility.

    Is your google broken? This has indeed been addressed (by actual scientists) and the estimate of those impacts are of course refined as models improve.

    Like here.

  7. suckers by caviare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Obviously the CFC industry wasn't as big and powerful as the fossil fuels industries, didn't spend enough money obfuscating the issues, perverting public opinion by telling them want they wanted to hear and getting Rupert to agree with their point of view.

    1. Re:suckers by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was a big fight. DuPont spent a lot of money trying to block regulation; until they found a replacement chemical.

      Then they conceded the fight (because they could concede and still make just as much money).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:suckers by MrKaos · · Score: 5, Informative

      CFC's were nasty chemicals, but they weren't generally crucial to modern life.... Go nuclear or give up.

      It's a common myth that Nuclear doesn't contribute to greenhouse gasses however, in reality, CFC114 is the primary chemical input to enriching Nuclear fuel prior to its use in Nuclear Reactors. Several years ago I was curious about this and I used data available from the US EPA web site on licenced CFC emitters and discovered that the largest emitter there was from the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

      At roughly 1,500,000Kg per year it was over 5 times more than the second on the list.

      The reason this is important is not because CFC's are a more potent (20,000*C) greenhouse gas, it's because CFC's affect Phytoplankton which are the creatures that produce oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide. Coupled with the secondary effect of ocean acidification from carbon absorbed from the atmosphere it interferes with the calcium content of these creatures shells forcing them deeper where photo synthesis is less effective. The same creatures are also affected by ozone depletion (which also forces them deeper) as it that careful balance of the suns radiation that allows them to produce oxygen in the first 1-10 metres of the oceans surface.

      They produce more oxygen than all of the tress on earth so understanding and making sure they are ok is one of those less understood tipping points that humans are messing with.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    3. Re:suckers by whoever57 · · Score: 2

      Obviously the CFC industry wasn't as big and powerful as the fossil fuels industries, didn't spend enough money obfuscating the issues, ....

      Nonsense. The producers of CFCs realized that there was more money to be made in producing (and patenting) the replacements. As an example, look at the price of an Albuterol inhaler. Or think about the cost of recharging an A/C system in comparison to the cost before Freon was banned.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    4. Re:suckers by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm not in love with the fossil fuel industry, but for all their problems it's also dangerous to assume that installing wind farms on every decent hillside won't have climatic effects.

      No. You are being an asshole or an idiot. I and others have covered this material exhaustively here repeatedly in the past, and I thought we were past this. This has been studied and the result was that there is a localized heating effect in a small area immediately downwind of the wind turbine which is rapidly lost in the noise of the already-chaotic system in precisely the same way that the butterfly effect is bullshit — if an entertaining thought exercise.

      Now, are you trolling, or just talking ignorant shit so that you have something to say? There's no third option.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:suckers by Rujiel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "I'm not in love with the fossil fuel industry, but.."

      One of many things to say before/after defending the fossil fuel industry.

    6. Re:suckers by dave420 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's the science-denialist "I'm not racist, but...". If one has a rational opinion on the topic such a disclaimer is not required.

    7. Re:suckers by dywolf · · Score: 2

      There is no scenario in which the problems of solar outweigh the problems of nuclear enough to sway the pendulum into nuclear's favor.
      --
      Huge amount of landscape....not really.

      A solar array ~135 miles on a side (that's 18,225 sq mi) is sufficient to provide all the energy needs of the entire planet. That's in between the size of maryland and West V. Now...the planet rotates, so you'd need a few of them. Let's say 8 of them, space so one (or a combination) is always receiving and generating enough, plus a margin of safety. That's still only 145,800 sq mi. Which is basically the size of Montana; but again dispersed around the planet.

      And given the rather large bodies of water, and large nearly inhabitable areas (deserts, polar packs, etc), placing in areas not normally frequented or inhabited isn't particularly difficult. of course it's all predicated on the existence of smart grid tech, but we should be, and are, developing that anyway.

      And of course that's assuming only the use of the giant power stations, and ignoring all the potential rooftop installations*, as well wind generation with nearly permanent wind, such as Oklahoma.

      It's not an insurmountable problem.
      It's quite easily doable, even with today's technology.

      And the side effects still pale in comparison to all the problems associated with nuclear waste.
      --

      *Bonus math: 350 million people in the US. Assume half live in house of 4, rest in some sort of communal building containing at least 20 people (apartment, condo, etc). That's 43,750,000 homes, and 8,750,000 apartments/condos. Average house sq ft is ~1600. Average apartment building is 4x that, at 6,400.

      Total roof area estimate is then (somewhat more than, but we'll ignore peak angles for now to make it more conservative) 126,000,000,000 sq ft, which is 4519.63 sq miles.

      Which means that if every residential structure in the US alone had rooftop solar, we'd already be 25% of the way to the solar installation area needed to power the world. Add in Europe, and we're going to be nearly 50% of the way there. Add in our commercial buildings too, and we're likely at 100%, if not more.

      Again: doable in our lifetimes with current technology, with a combination of dedicated generating plants and distributed rooftop installations.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    8. Re:suckers by MrKaos · · Score: 2

      Any idea why they're allowed to emit the CFCs, rather than trapping them? I would expect it to be a closed system. Is this just tiny, unavoidable leaks, or is it deliberately releasing them to the atmosphere?

      Yeah, it's hundreds of miles of pipes in a closed system, so they leak and it's old. Trapping it would be good, however I don't think that has been achieved. I believe that is why ultracentrifuge technology is being pursued.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  8. Re:Ozone layer is recovering by dbIII · · Score: 3, Funny

    And, how does this all relate to the much-feared, much-publicized "global warming"

    Because those much maligned atmospheric scientists who are apparently not as good at their field as sudoko puzzle writers, PR folks and economists are involved with both.
    Otherwise it has nothing at all to do with climate change.

    I must note that the hottest decade on record was the same decade in which the ozone layer was most depleted

    I must note that ultraviolet is not infrared, and also that your hottest decade is a bit out of date.

  9. Re:Ozone layer is recovering by BoogieChile · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It indicates that when all the science tells you there is a problem, it would be a good idea to do something about it before it's too late?

  10. Re:Ozone layer is recovering by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can't tell if you are joking or serious, but I'll try to explain. The ozone layer is a completely distinct problem from global warming. The presence of ozone is necessary because ozone blocks UV radiation. Ozone does act as a weak greenhouse gas, as you can see on the list of greenhouse gases here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas but it is one of the weakest. Note that if anything, this would mean you'd naively expect a lower temperature when there's more ozone (in fact the actual relation is more complicated). So the idea that the ozone hole would have caused warming is just deeply wrong.

  11. Susan Solomon—read about her by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Susan Solomon at MIT was a particularly important person in the development of the Montreal protocol. I recommend reading about her and her work. Surface catalysis in clouds is interesting. Why didn't the ozone hole form over the arctic, not just the antarctic? Read her work to find out. It has to do with formation of certain clouds at particular altitude only found in the antarctic, and re-formation of the catalytic chain carrier due to a particular reaction that is promoted on those crystals.

    Thank god we had the intelligence to fix our own mistake. On second thought, don't thank god—thank science.

  12. Re:Ozone layer is recovering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And, how does this all relate to the much-feared, much-publicized "global warming".

    Not much at all.

    The Ozone layer was an issue for UV radiation reaching the Earth's surface and causing problems, the thermal effect would remain unchanged for the most part.

    Is it REALLY carbon dioxide that caused all that warming? Or - was it the ozone layer?

    No one seems to address that possibility.

    Also nobody talks about how the snowman might have started a wildfire, or how an oven might have caused frostbite, or how a tree could have committed murder.

    Ok, probably not that much unrelated, but still, the greenhouse effects of the gases banned under the Montreal protocol was very much a secondary concern to the effects of removing the UV shield that ozone provided.

    But if you want to read the IPCC list, try:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_list_of_greenhouse_gases

  13. Nothing to do with Climate Change by Harlequin80 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seriously guys. Learn to read!!! The Montreal Protocol was all about reducing ozone depleting chemicals from being released into the atmosphere with a particular focus on CFCs. There is NO LINK to climate change in this treaty and climate change had nothing to do with the decision to take it. There was a growing hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica, to the point it was stretching over Australia. CFCs were directly linked to the growth of the hole and cutting their use has dramatically improved the situation re the size of the hole.

    There continue to be releases of other chemicals that have been restricted, especially from fire fighting equipment. But CFCs made up such a huge component and their use dropped so much that that alone has made a measurable impact.

    Really this is exactly the same as restricting the emission of sulphur because it lead to acid rain.

    1. Re:Nothing to do with Climate Change by Neil+Boekend · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is a link to climate change. The solution to the ozone problem is a proof that we can do it.
      Now I am not saying that waning off from CO2 dumping is going to be as relatively easy as CFCs, but it is at least as important.

      Sulphur is a similar proof that global cooperation can fix damage done to our atmosphere.

      --
      Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
    2. Re:Nothing to do with Climate Change by operagost · · Score: 2

      The solution to the ozone problem is a proof that we can do it.

      No, it's not. The solution to the ozone layer issue was to ban a narrow range of chemicals that included CFC. We can't ban CO2 because that's like banning life processes. Misguided people want to use the government hammer to get the job done again, not thinking about the impact. Just cutting government loose will give it power over nearly the entire energy industry, on which our entire lifestyle and livelihood rests. It's de facto control of everything. A measured response is required, one that requires as little government mandate as possible.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
  14. Re:Of course the extreme ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Variance of UV band is still only 1.5%, and during the minimum, that UV would decrease, leading to lower ozone production.

  15. Re:nonsense by DamnOregonian · · Score: 4, Informative

    look up the molecular weight of freon. It doesn't rise in the atmosphere, it sinks like a lead balloon.

    N2 is less dense than air. Does it all rise to the top of the atmosphere?
    CO2 is denser than air. Does it all sink to the bottom?

    Stupid rubes.

    Indeed.
    You should apply some kinetic energy to a mixture of oil and water sometime, and see how it looks.

  16. Re:chumps taken for a ride by DamnOregonian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    DuPont made a pile off the new alternatives.

    Yes, there's lots of money to be made in fixing our fuckups, even by the people who supplies the tools to create said fuckups. Why is this relevant?

    The "recovery" started happening even before change of CFCs implemented

    Utterly not true... Unless of course you limit the data set to between about 86 and 88, and exclude before and after. Smells like denialist arguing ;)

    clearly the size of the "hole" just solar cycle driven

    Now this is just stupid. The high part of the solar cycle creates *more* Ozone, and we've undergone 4 full cycles since the CFC problem was hypothesized and identified, and the stratospheric ozone measurements aren't even nudged by the cycle... Maybe due to how utterly small the variation in the cycle is (.07% of mean peak to trough)

    What a bunch of sheeple....

    What do you even say to a fucking idiot who talks out of his ass like that?
    How would you tell your child they're wrong if they told you today that it's safe to be shot by a gun, and that most people die of a heart attack out of fright from the sound of the gun firing?

  17. Re:nonsense by grcumb · · Score: 2

    but we did inflate duPort's bank account as their patents on Freon had run out and Congress made the old Freon illegal just in time for the new and improved patented Freon to enter the marketplace.

    Yes, Dupont sat on the patent for a chemical compound they knew was safer until it became clear that the courts and governments were going to act, and then and only then did they finally file the patent on an HCFC compound to replace Freon. It was an act of stunning cynicism, but you're aiming your contempt in precisely the wrong direction.

    stupid rubes

    Physician, heal thyself.

    --
    Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
  18. Re:nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The company's name is "duPont". I'm assuming you're stupid since "duPort" doesn't form any form of sarcastic parody.

    "Freon" is not the subject of a patent, it is a trademark, which will remain in force as long as duPont defends it.

    "Freon" is not a single chemical, it is a label duPont applies to numerous halocarbon compounds.

    Most of these compounds were discovered well before 1950, meaning any possible patents on the molecules or their synthesis expired well before 1980, let alone the passage of the Montreal Protocol.

    Denser bulk gasses will remain in the bottom of a container, however once mixed the entropy of mixing means that the process is not spontaneously reversible: there are unimaginably more states where freon molecules and air molecules are fully mixed than states where they are fully or even partly separated. Even by waiting, it is simple to see the tendency of the boundary to smear due to molecular diffusion processes, which are also irreversible.

    You managed to get every single "factual" statement wrong. Stop posting, stop reading right wing propaganda, take a class on critical thinking, and start reading science books. But really, the most important thing is to stop posting, some innocent passerby might not know to instantly dismiss your shitpost.

  19. Re:nonsense by Capsaicin · · Score: 4, Funny

    You should apply some kinetic energy to a mixture of oil and water sometime, and see how it looks.

    Better still use a mixture of vinegar and oil, (with a little added pepper, salt and dried herb), and then apply some kinetic energy. That way you can have your demonstration and eat it too.

    --
    Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
  20. Ah, but its not that simple by Viol8 · · Score: 2

    As more heat gets trapped at the ground so the stratosphere where ozone destruction occurs gets colder (because less heat is coming up from below) and so ironicaly in warmer winters it can be colder in the stratosphere and hence more O3 destruction can occur.

  21. Good news everyone! by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 2

    Be glad the Koch brothers didn't own any companies making CFCs.

  22. Re:When Global Warming doesn't happen, same deal by hey! · · Score: 2

    It's a little late to be talking about averting global warming.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  23. Re:nonsense by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Anything that happens inflates someone's bank account. If governments ban CFCs then people with CFC substitutes get a windfall. If governments don't ban CFCs then makers of sunscreen and skin cancer treatments get a windfall.

    This is how capitalism works -- how it's supposed to work. Problems attract capital, which generates profits. But it's also how market solutions fall short. It's better for the public if someone makes a killing replacing CFC than if someone else makes a killing treating skin cancer.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  24. Re:next up: ban cars by hey! · · Score: 2

    Well, driving cars in urban centers generally sucks between the traffic and finding parking. The problem is people are too stubborn to get their act together and provide abundant satellite parking and transit links. Sure, driving your car right up to a store is ideal when you're the only one doing it, but there's a reason malls are built with parking on the periphery and pedestrian access at the core. If parking was the most pleasant and convenient way to get a lot of people into a confined area you'd be able to drive right into Disney World and park your car at Space Mountain.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.