Posted on 10/27/2019 2:44:06 PM PDT by 11th_VA
WASHINGTONThe 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 Earths protective ozone layer is 3.6 million square miles (9.3 million square kilometers). Thats down from a peak of 10.3 million square miles (26.6 million square kilometers) in 2006.
This years hole is even smaller than the one first discovered in 1985.
Thats really good news, Nasa scientist Paul Newman said Tuesday. That means more ozone over the Hemisphere, less ultraviolet radiation at the surface.
Earths 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 Protocolthe only United Nations treaty ratified by every country on Earthbanned many of the chlorine compounds used in refrigerants and aerosols.
The ban resulted in a slightly smaller ozone hole in recent years, but this years dramatic shrinking isnt from those efforts, Newman said.
Its 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 vortexwhich just like the northern one is a swirl of cold high-speed winds around the polestarted to break down...
(Excerpt) Read more at businessmirror.com.ph ...
Their answer is always “the weather” when real world observations become inconvenient.
Nothing Man did made this change. Take note. We’re embarrassingly insignificant, compared to our arrogance and ego.
Sure, it's a grammatically crummy run-on sentence but I don't care.
LOL
Got to revise those textbooks!
Second: the hole is allegedly 3.6 million miles.( Down from 10.3 million square miles. The entire continent of Antarctica is 5.4 million square miles.) Are they saying that the “antarctic ozone hole” was nearly twice the size of the Continent, and now is about 60% the size of the Continent?
The science for CFCs breaking down into chlorine by high energy UV is pretty basic. Also the increase in CFCs is measured. But the idea that CFCs last 100 years, even if true, means that CFCs don’t affect the ozone layer. They are inert and don’t affect anything.
*ping*
Th sun is far less active right now. These Luddites think man created the ozone hole.
Thanks fieldmarshaldj.
I think the main solar link is through weather. The stratospheric vortex was stronger starting in the 80's, depleting the ozone. Weakened vortexes this year and 2002 allowed full recovery. The Sudden Stratospheric Warming that weakened the vortex this year is a phenomenon that is primarily solar with feedback from tropospheric weather.
Eliminating the CFCs that were useful & the price was right so they could be replaced with high-priced, sometimes less satisfactory substitutes was the original plan I believe. It hasn’t helped in any real way I can tell. Except to the makers & sellers of the high-priced substitutes,whose bottom line it has helped. The public was generally being lied to all along as this has taken place IMHO.
Of course it was. The second we banned CFCs the nightly news stopped reporting the ozone hole.
I don’t think something at 100,000+ feet is bothered by polar weather, not to mention the atmospheric ozone is less than 0.0001 percent of the atmosphere. It never was an issue. Never.
Over Antarctica Only!
https://www.google.com/search?q=ozone+hole+south&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf2_b60b3lAhUiheAKHVMWCT8Q_AUIEigC&biw=1366&bih=655
The penguins suffer so...
As for the weather, you can argue that the stratospheric polar vortex is weather. It is solar-modulated but also hooked in a feedback loop with tropospheric waves. The vortex speed peaks around 20 km but the winds extend up another 10 km or more.
President Trump fixed the Ozone Hole. Three Cheers!!!
And there you go. Yet another "feel good, spend lots of money treaty" that did not a damn thing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.