U.N.: Seasonal Ozone Hole Disappeared

Yahoo News ^ | 11/20/03

[tiki]

I should read all the posts before asking a question.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The seasonal "ozone hole" over the South Pole has disappeared again after reaching record size earlier this year, U.N. officials said Thursday.

We're all going to die!!!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Ozone is formed by splitting an oxygen molecule and binding one of the atoms to another oxygen molecule forming O3. This happens in the upper atmosphere by incoming ultraviolet light hitting our oxygen atmosphere.

Ozone production occurs near the ground and is typically catalyzed by organic compounds in the air. The highest recorded ozone levels near the earth's surface were found in our western national forests, catalyzed by organic molecules emitted from trees.

Some chloroflourocarbons can persist in the air for up to 10 years, long enough to reach the south pole, but more than long enough to reach the north pole. Antartica has a volcano that spews chlorine and flourine gases directly into the air in the south pole. The hole seems to wax and wane with volcano's activity.

[PhilSC]

Your plot is interesting and sure suggests that the ozone concentration has been reduced. But I worry about the distortion of plotting averages. I would be interested to see how the results look if they were plotted monthly.

[F.J. Mitchell]

So the hole closes up as the temperatures warm? Well thank goodness for global warming.

[cogitator]

Your plot is interesting and sure suggests that the ozone concentration has been reduced. But I worry about the distortion of plotting averages. I would be interested to see how the results look if they were plotted monthly.

The plot is of the average ozone concentration (expressed in Dobson units) in October, when the ozone hole is most intense. Photochemically catalyzed destruction of ozone takes place when the polar vortex is in place and sunlight is available. In November, the collapse of the polar vortex circulation allows the ozone-deficient air mass to mix with the rest of the atmosphere, raising the ozone concentrations to about the same as the rest of the atmosphere. The ozone hole has an impact on total atmospheric ozone because it's where destruction of ozone is most rapid. When the mixing takes place, the overall concentration of the entire atmosphere is slightly reduced. Left unchecked (which fortunately the Montreal Protocol is doing, i.e., reducing the amount of CFCs in the atmosphere) there would be more and more destruction of ozone everywhere, and even more intense destruction during the "ozone hole" conditions.

If you looked at ozone concentrations every month over Antarctica, the only time that the depletion is observed is during September-November.

[cogitator]

Antartica has a volcano that spews chlorine and flourine gases directly into the air in the south pole. The hole seems to wax and wane with volcano's activity.

Not true. Erebus, the volcano in question, emits typical volcanic volatiles, including HCl and HF. These do not reach the stratosphere; they are rapidly removed from the atmosphere by precipitation (rain and snow) and neutralized in the ocean.

The chlorinated chemical species in the stratosphere that cause ozone destruction result from the breakdown of chlorinated chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the upper atmosphere.

[chuckles]

....."Please understand there is a big difference between science and belief"....

The evolutionists will be all over this. Science is whatever they say it is or they will call you a moron, or some other name like fundamentalist or something. DO NOT ARGUE WITH THEM OR THIS THREAD WILL BE OVER 1000!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I stand corrected. There is a long, way too technical summary here;

cfc's

[Coeur de Lion]

I don't consider UV radiation to be cosmic-rays. I know that I stated it was electrical storms in the stratosphere that caused it ozone production; which was incorrect. It's origin is due to UV radiation breaking down O2 so there's two free oxygen atoms which will then combine with O2 to form ozone. Again I was mistaken, but UV radiation also isn't considered to be a cosmic-ray.

[paulk]

....."Please understand there is a big difference between science and belief"....

The evolutionists will be all over this. Science is whatever they say it is or they will call you a moron

As far as I'm concerned both the creationists and the evolutionists are both wrong scientifically speaking (the creationists need to dance around the mitacondrial DNA findings with their theories and the evolutionists need to dance around calculated mutation rates) – neither group seems to know what they don't know. I believe the evolutionists have found something, but it has several round parts jammed into square holes and is not questioned enough to keep the process going.

In the case of the ozone hole, to call statistical sampling of an open system science just shows they don't know what the word science means. You can use such data to 'help' support your theory (if it fails to disprove it), but unless you have a way to remove all of the uncontrolled variables, it is just cargo cult science; something that looks like science but isn't.

To quote Richard Feynman:
But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me.

[paulk]

What in the world in the data shows that this is not a natural variation? Yes, there is a correlation to CFC use and the recorded reduction of ozone levels, but I think you would also find a similar correlation with federal spending, breast cancer, or the number of scientists stationed in antartica.

Correlation dose not show cause and effect – and this is not anything like a cyclic correlation – it is just a trend – and a simple trend has a 50% chance of being in the right direction to support a theory linking it to a second trend.

Now if the ozone begins to go back up as measured CFC levels drop you have a one time signal – still not exactly science yet.

Several other possibilities exist that could just as easily explain such trends – such as lower stratospheric temperatures.

Of course that leaves out any connection with a danger of UV radiation at ground level – if the ozone is depleted in the stratosphere, UV light would tend to create ozone at lower elevations (and warmer air).

Then you have to deal with the problem that there never was any measured increase in UV radiation other than at the poles where people don't live.

Now just so no one gets the wrong idea – I have not disproved anything. CFC could be causing this ozone phenomena – I'm only showing that we don't really know. Getting federal grants and working at university does not mean there is real science going on, but there does seem to be a lot of real politics going on.

[chuckles]

I was .......how you say.......being sarcastic. Should have used emocons or something like ;<)