We're doomed! Doomed, I tell you!
Posted on 10/02/2006 3:37:03 PM PDT by gopwinsin04
Polar Winds Depleting Ozone, Affecting Climate Change, Study Says Richard A. Lovett for National Geographic News
October 2, 2006 Winter winds circling high above the North Pole drew down near-record amounts of ozone-destroying gases from the upper atmosphere last year, according to a new study.
The destruction of this ozone, which heats the upper atmosphere, could have profound impacts on global climate.
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RELATED Global Warming May Unleash "Sand Seas" in Africa, Model Shows (June 2005) "Global Warming: Signs From Earth" in National Geographic Magazine Ozone Layer May Be on the Mend, New Data Suggest (August 2003)
What's more, some climate models suggest that global warming will increase the average strength of polar winds.
Scientists had long believed that highly reactive nitrogen-oxygen gases, collectively referred to as NOx, were drawn down only when large quantities were formed during intense solar storms.
But last winter, when solar activity was low, strong circumpolar winds over the Arctic produced a major downflux of the gases.
More frequent strong winds would bring down more gases and further deplete the ozone layer, which would in turn affect climate change.
(Ozone interactive: where it forms, what it affects.)
Still, says study author Cora Randall, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, other climate models show that global warming will cause polar winds to decrease.
"There are still a lot of questions," she said.
NOx-ous Vortex
Ozone serves two major roles in the middle part of the atmosphere known as the stratosphere.
At lower elevations, the molecules block ultraviolet (UV) light, reducing the amount of the skin-cancer-causing rays that reach the ground.
Most concerns about ozone depletion involve the lower portions of the stratosphere—about 7 miles (11 kilometers) above Earth's surface—where pollutants creeping up from below can destroy ozone.
(Related news: "Old Fridges, Cars Slow Ozone Hole Recovery, Scientists Say" [December 2005].)
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RELATED Global Warming May Unleash "Sand Seas" in Africa, Model Shows (June 2005) "Global Warming: Signs From Earth" in National Geographic Magazine Ozone Layer May Be on the Mend, New Data Suggest (August 2003)
But higher in the stratosphere UV light interacts with ozone to heat up the thin air 30 miles (50 kilometers) above Earth—near the boundary where the stratosphere meets the next layer, the mesosphere.
NOx gases are created in the mesosphere when it is bombarded by energetic particles from outer space that are drawn to the Poles by Earth's magnetic field.
Normally NOx stays high up in the mesosphere, where it is quickly broken down by sunlight.
But strong, high-altitude winds can create a vortex that draws the gases down into the upper stratosphere.
"As long as you get those winds, you're going to get NOx coming down, and it's going to destroy ozone," said Randall, whose study was published in the September 27 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Before last year's event, the only time on record when more NOx descended from the mesosphere was in the winter of 2003-04.
Solar storms that season created so much NOx above the Arctic that the gases triggered a 60 percent reduction in the region's ozone molecules.
Changes in the amount of ozone alter the amount of heating in the upper atmosphere, potentially affecting global climate, Randall says.
In particular, less ozone means a cooler stratosphere at the Poles.
That creates a larger temperature difference between the Poles and the Equator, which in turn could lead to changes in upper stratospheric wind patterns, Randall says.
While last year's winds were probably a natural effect, global warming could affect the winds in the future.
But scientists are still trying to understand how the many layers of the atmosphere affect each other and thus impact climate.
"We only have one atmosphere," Randall said. "I wish I could tell people how [this] is going to affect people on the ground, but there are a lot of connections that still have to be made."
Complex System
Other climate scientists are intrigued by Randall's findings.
"I think this is an interesting result and the authors are to be congratulated," Lon Hood, of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, wrote in an email.
Hood notes that similar effects probably occur at the South Pole.
"These downward-transport events occur more commonly in the Southern Hemisphere, where the polar vortex is usually stronger than it is in the Northern Hemisphere," he said.
Drew Shindell, of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, added that any effect on climate—while "plausible"—would occur "through a long chain of complicated processes."
Studies like this, he says, are important, because they reveal new feedback mechanisms that could affect global climate.
"It's a region of the atmosphere that most people haven't thought of a lot," he said.
"We don't know exactly what climate is going to do up there, but it will certainly change something."
But...but...what about the cattle flatulence?
OMG!!! We're all gonna die!!!!!!
--and here we thought it was fluorocarbons in the Southern Hemisphere that were going to end life as we know it----
LOL
I stay up night worrying about it
Oh no! Now we have to worry about polar winds. Now what do you suppose causes polar winds?
Smoking sigarettes? SUVs? Cattle fhats? Nuclear waste?
Big Macs? All of the above?
Well Golly! - they sound so certain! Let's go make a bunch of "factual" claims (like Algore) and change policy based on this "settled" scientific fact!
But unfortunately, they do and we must then fight such nonsense.
There is a continuing enviro movement to try and get cattle off the land out here in the west because they want folks to believe that cattle flatulence is destroying the Ozone layer. I kid you not.
Oh the pain, the pain!.....
LOL
Too bad, I thought I read it was getting beter.
umm, better
 |
| Does this mean we need to outlaw blustery weather on the polar caps or bear farts? |
The simple solution: Ban the polar winds!
Yada yada yada...
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