Posted on 10/27/2019 2:44:06 PM PDT by 11th_VA
WASHINGTON—The ozone hole near the South Pole this year is the smallest since it was discovered, but it is more due to freakish Antarctic weather than efforts to cut down on pollution, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) reported.
This fall, the average hole in Earth’s protective ozone layer is 3.6 million square miles (9.3 million square kilometers). That’s down from a peak of 10.3 million square miles (26.6 million square kilometers) in 2006.
This year’s hole is even smaller than the one first discovered in 1985.
“That’s really good news,” Nasa scientist Paul Newman said Tuesday. “That means more ozone over the Hemisphere, less ultraviolet radiation at the surface.”
Earth’s ozone layer shields life on the surface from harmful solar radiation, but man-made chlorine compounds that can last in the air for 100 years nibble at the ozone, creating thinning and a gap over the Southern Hemisphere.
The hole reaches its peak in September and October, and disappears by late December until the next spring in the Southern Hemisphere.
The 1987 international Montreal Protocol—the only United Nations treaty ratified by every country on Earth—banned many of the chlorine compounds used in refrigerants and aerosols.
The ban resulted in a slightly smaller ozone hole in recent years, but this year’s dramatic shrinking isn’t from those efforts, Newman said.
“It’s just a fluke of the weather,” said University of Colorado atmospheric scientist Brian Toon.
Chlorine in the air needs cold temperatures in the stratosphere and clouds to convert into a form of the chemical that eats ozone, Newman said. The clouds go away when it warms up.
But this September and October, the southern polar vortex—which just like the northern one is a swirl of cold high-speed winds around the pole—started to break down...
(Excerpt) Read more at businessmirror.com.ph ...
I think that means another brutal winter (like last year).
Thanks be to re-greta-bull.
Outside of the weather don’t forget there is limited sunspot activity currently so less solar wind.
I always thought it depended on which color band was larger.
It’s Trump’s fault! Impeach!!!!!
It’s just a fluke of the weather
Of course it is.
Why couldn’t it been a fluke of the weather that caused the ozone hole?
What a good thing it is that we panicked and spent, what, trillions of dollars eliminating chlorofluorocarbons. All that money and effort, for nothing.
Time to ban current refrigerants and mandate new, expensive refrigerants.
Oops.
Give me a big enough grant to hire a compliant “scientist” and I can do a study that proves the hole in the ozone is how carbon escapes from the atmosphere into space.
And that closing the ozone hole dooms us all to heat death.
Great point!
Since the shrinkage was predicted by no one, why should anyone believe predictions of expansion?
The lefties did that already. People have to buy their air conditioner recharging stuff from interne at astronomical prices t What they will to do now is Impeach Trump. And - https://desertpeace.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/6a00d83451bab869e200e54f2499908834-800wi.jpg
What’s interesting is, they are admitting that ‘Arctic Weather’ has a macro effect on the hole size, and implies, chlorofluorocarbons have a micro effect on hole size.
BS. The CFCs that last 40-50 years average in the atmosphere are inert and do not nibble at anything. When they reach the upper stratosphere, after their possible decades of inert life, a percentage is broken down by ultraviolet. The free chlorine can then nibble at ozone for a 2-3 years until it falls back down to earth. It's absolutely no different from natural chlorine from volcanic eruptions. The worst case for eruptions is about a decade.
Granted there is an added chlorine load due to CFCs. But the longer the lifetime for the CFCs, the smaller added chlorine load is. Also the lack of ozone loss this year just like 2002, shows that weather is a big controlling factor.
As long as it wasn’t him that told you that :)
It seems like the patents for R12 had run out anyone could have produced them.
I think i’ll take my gas guzzling, fuel burning Challenger out for a long ride!!
It’s ok to now.
Dang! Now I need to go back outside and see if I can find him.
Or not.
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