Posted on 02/08/2009 11:28:48 PM PST by neverdem
Climate change is bringing mixed news to the ozone layer. Thanks to increasing CO2 concentrations and shifting air currents, the mid-northern hemisphere, including the United States, Canada, and Europe, will likely see its ozone restored ahead of schedule, according to a new study. Meanwhile, areas throughout the tropics and the mid-southern hemisphere, such as Australia, New Zealand, and Peru, may experience a delay in their ozone recovery. Ozone is an important part of the upper atmosphere that protects both humans and ecosystems from harmful UV-B radiation. In the 1970s, the loss of ozone from the stratosphere (10 to 50 kilometers above Earth's surface) became a large concern: Scientists realized that ozone-depleting chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), used in everything from aerosols to refrigerators, were destroying the ozone layer worldwide, especially at the poles.
Those aren't the only emissions that impact ozone, however. Researchers have long known that greenhouse gases might help the layer recover by cooling the stratosphere, which slows the rates of chemical reactions that destroy ozone. But climate change has another effect: It changes patterns of global air circulation. Until several years ago, no one had looked at how this would impact the ozone layer.
A team led by atmospheric scientist Darryn Waugh of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, ran a chemistry climate model, which simulates atmospheric dynamics, energy transfer, and changes in chemistry over the next century. The results show that an increase in air flow through the mid-southern hemisphere will slow the rate of ozone production there, delaying ozone recovery in places such as Australia and Argentina. Even by the end of the century, the ozone layer in the tropics will not return to pre-1960s levels, the team reports this week in Geophysical Research Letters. Conversely, the United States and other places in the Northern Hemisphere will see enhanced ozone recovery, allowing them to return to mid-20th century ozone levels by about 2030. Ozone recovery at the poles will be minimally affected by climate change.
The findings point to an increased risk of skin cancer among fair-skinned populations in places such as Australia and New Zealand and high-altitude regions such as Peru and Chile, says atmospheric scientist Dan Lubin of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California.
Atmospheric scientist Theodore Shepherd of University of Toronto in Canada, says that previous models have found similar regional trends but that this study provides a greater understanding of the individual effect of both climate change and CFC reduction on ozone recovery. And atmospheric scientist Martyn Chipperfield of the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom notes that although the patterns seen in this study are probably robust, other climate models may indicate different rates of ozone recovery.
After the lawyers are shot, next are those who make models with computers for the climate and financial engineering.
these people are looney tunes. building one lousy theory on top of another. no normal science could get away with such craziness. only the political “sciences” can do this
I could pull things out of my butt about future climate with more accuracy then these guys.
computers are good for modeling known phenomena, but this is just fitting the models to meet some fear-mongering expectation. what comes out of these models isn’t worth anything.
This just in....Ozone Layer declares hatred for Climate Change and slaps him upside the head...
Rubbish. Just as they were wrong then, they are wrong now. "scientists" don't know squat about the earth's atmosphere. Even I know the wealth of the western world has no effect whatsoever on the atmosphere, and it won't have any effect whatsoever if we give it all to turd world countries either. And neither does anything else enviro-nuts want banned, like plastic shopping bags, cigarette butts, urban sprawl, electricity transmission towers, and cow farts.
A team led by atmospheric scientist Darryn Waugh of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, ran a chemistry climate model, which simulates atmospheric dynamics, energy transfer, and changes in chemistry over the next century.
What a bunch of huey. Changes air circulation? LMAO! And just how would they know? it's not like there is a regular pattern, in fact air patterns are NEVER the same twice. We can't even get a reliable weather forecast, yet these pimple faced students (not "scientists" as the Media always tries to call them) led by some nutcase teacher (teachers are people who got a phd, but couldn't get a job in the private sector) are gonna try tell us that they have it all figured out from some "model" computer program they run on an old Mac computer. I'm so sick of these stupid claims, all of which have the same agenda, blame "evil" humans and "evil" oil, or rather the carbon it makes, which is one of the most abundant elements on earth in the first place, without which everything green on the planet would die.
There's the shorthand, characteristic of the audience of ScienceNow.. "Ahead of schedule?"
As if, literally, "as if: there were, somewhere, in the illusionary "Master Control" of Dr. Nemo, perhaps, riding the Nautilus bravely under the south seas, blowing up Japanese Whalers and other Ships of War, a room full of dials which, turned this way or that, change the fundamentals of Earth's orbit or activate shielding against Cosmic Rays, forcing the People's Climate this way or that, according to some schedule.
This is the mindset in graduate schools throughout the West, when they cover topics briefly in the news with one another.
It's nothing short of a religion.
It's far easier to hide this hubris in the abstract of a conference paper, but the belief in a lie, a fantasy, comes out in this correspondence, and especially from ScienceNow.
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Ping me if you find one I've missed.
Objectivity lost in a keystroke.
Thanks for the ping!
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