Posted on 09/17/2002 12:47:17 PM PDT by profmike23
Ozone Good News is Bad News
The United Nations recently completed a major report on the current status of stratospheric ozone, ozone depletion, and the ozone "holes." Why haven't you heard about it? The reason is simple: The report is chock full of good news. The rate of ozone decline is slowing...the Antarctic ozone hole is not enveloping the midlatitudes...penguins are not getting more sunburn. That hardly merits major media attention with so many environmental "crises" looming.
Apparently by some miracle, we all managed to survive the worst of the ozone depletion. Global levels of ozone in the stratosphere should start increasing again within the decade and the Antarctic ozone hole will likewise shrink. Furthermore, the once-predicted expansion of the Antarctic hole over places populated primarily by human nonscientists (i.e., parts of Australia and the southern tip of South America) never really materialized. According to report co-author Paul Newman of NASA, "by 2010, we could see five to six years when the hole looks consistently smaller than during the past five years."
During the decade of ozone furor in the 1990s, a handful of ozone experts waxed alarmingly about an ozone hole forming over the North Pole that would spread over populated areas of Canada and even the United States, causing untold environmental damage, higher rates of skin cancer, and so on. But as with every single environmental scare scenario that we can think of, this turned out to be completely off the mark. Figure 1 shows the ozone record for four monitoring sites in the United States. Aside from the obvious seasonality, note that the yearly maxes and mins tended to decline in the early 1990s, the period of ozone alarmism. Since then, ozone levels have rebounded, though not quite back to 1980 levels.
One problem in this business is that you don't know if a trend is really a trend until is has already changed direction. In 1991, Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines spewed loads of ozone-eating halogens (chlorine, bromine, etc.) into the stratosphere. In retrospect, it's easy to discern that the several-year period of low ozone levels from 1991 to 1995 or so was directly related to that natural event. But at the time, the low readings generated major news headlines, government grant programs, and Nobel Prizes in chemistry.
So that's the end of the ozone story, right? All the ozone scientists at the South Pole are packing up their gear and moving on to the next hot topic? Of course not. The report notes many areas of uncertaintylevels of harmful ultraviolet radiation are still increasing in some regions despite ozone's recovery; developing nations need to abide by regulations or future holes will form; and other "surprises" still could arise at any time because of climate change (the only real surprise would be if these so-called "climate surprises" didn't make the list Eds.).
Yes, this certainly must be the feel-good environmental story of the new millennium. In the 1980s, the world's leading scientists, through careful and persistent measurement, identified a threat to humankind. Leading scientists and politicians met and, after years of tough negotiation, hammered out an agreement that came to be known as the "Montreal Protocol" that effectively eliminated the production and use of ozone-destroying CFCs. Implementation costs were passed on to the consumers, but now, more than a decade later, we are finally beginning to reap the benefits of these concerted and humanitarian efforts. Roll credits!
And therein lies the problem. Many of the world's scientists and governments are applying the strategy that apparently worked so successfully with ozone depletion to global warming. It's easy to draw parallels, but the problem is that they're really perpendiculars. To wit:
Ozone depletion is linked to a specific series of chemical reactions related to halocarbons, of which there were very few human sources. The gases responsible for global warming have a wide variety of anthropogenic and natural sources, most of which are extremely difficult to regulate.
Replacements for CFCs were available and at a relatively low cost. The replacement for a fossil fuelbased energy stream is also readily available. It's called nuclear power, but no governments have the political backbone to start up a major nuclear power program and anger the greenie Left.
Developing nations can make significant economic progress without aerosol spray cans. The same cannot be said for electricity.
The list goes on. So the notion that governments have, via the regulatory process, actually Done Something to suppress a global atmospheric "problem" like ozone depletion could be the worst news yet on the global warming front. Under the specific auspices of the Kyoto Protocol, many countries would have little real economic price to pay to "reduce" greenhouse gas levels worldwide. But again, the so-called parallels are really perpendiculars: Unlike the Montreal Protocol, the implementing of the Kyoto greenhouse gas reductions in fact would have no measurable impact on global temperatures; what it would severely impact is the economy of the United States and therefore the opportunities and aspirations of the developing world.
(Excerpt) Read more at co2andclimate.org ...
http://jwocky.gsfc.nasa.gov/multi/multi.html
Well, stop it! Parts of Sacramento desparately need a good elephant stampede.
Thank you, friend... I covered a little bit of the "Freon Wars" here:
Scams, Scalawags, and an all-too-gullible Public...famous frauds sold to America
I was involved it that before I came to the 'net, and so have no other links- but I can tell you this: volcanism releases megatons of flourine and other halide compounds into the air annually- the idea that cracking a pound can of Freon is signifigant is absurd.
But, of course, working scientists are each very busy doing actual science, or teaching science and don't have time for PR
As are most business owners and entrepreneurs too busy to be doing PR to expose the political-junk in their industry. The loud people are in government, the mainstream media and special interest groups lobbying congress. They're Chicken Littles yelling about business supposedly harming their customers and society. Chicken Littles are not creators of marketable values. The are the destroyers of marketable values.
Why is the scientific community so silent on the subject of 'junk science?'
They aren't silent at all. Far from it, if you are in the same room with them.
Those scientist have a marketable product. To relive them of the burden of doing the non-science work a entrepreneur could ask the scientists to turn on a pocket-mini-tape recorder to capture the discussions. Send the tapes to the entrepreneur and let him compile the taped conversations into marketable products. The entrepreneur could hire a honest scientist to help him on each project. Seems to me that there already is at least a few honest scientists that have gone from working in the lab to exposing the junk science.
It is very possible (and highly likely) that the so-called ozone hole is a natural atmospheric phenomenon that has existed for millions of years, shrinking and growing due to natural factors.
Sorry, you've got the history way wrong. The British Antarctic Survey was measuring ozone from the ground since 1956, and no depletion was noted. It was the British who first noted the declining ozone levels from the ground. It wasn't until 1985 that the "ozone hole" was publicized, but the data showed it back to 1976.
Here's the British Antarctic Survey data. Note that it's for October, when the ozone hole is largest and "deepest".
Below are two Web sites that provide detailed information.
The satellite you're thinking of (which is mentioned in the first Web site) was Nimbus-7 with the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS). IRAS was an astronomy satellite.
Tierra del Fuego Residents Get An Extra Dose Of Solar Radiation
by Marcela Valente
Buenos Aires (IPS) Sep 16, 2002: The size of the hole in the Earth's stratospheric ozone layer has stabilised, but scientists and environmentalists warn that the danger persists, evidenced by the fact that the 100,000 residents of Argentina's Tierra del Fuego province have been exposed to excessive solar radiation this week.
On the eve of the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, Sep 16, the people of Tierra del Fuego were the world's most exposed population to the sun's harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays, as the hole in this natural atmospheric shield was located this week over the far southern province.
The ozone layer is found 15 to 50 km above the Earth's surface and protects all living species from UV rays, which are harmful to human health, potentially causing burns, skin cancer and loss of sight. Excessive UV radiation can also damage crops.
"We in Tierra del Fuego have known for a long time that we have to be extremely cautious about exposure, but we live in an area where the sun is mostly absent. And when it does appear, it is sometimes hard to remember the danger and avoid going outside," Graciela Fuchs, a schoolteacher in the town of Rio Grande, told IPS.
The Southern Hemisphere winter in this province is very harsh, with an average temperature of one degree Celsius and only a few hours of daylight.
The Argentine air force's Global Atmospheric Monitoring Station reported that during the two days of extreme risk in Tierra del Fuego, the Dobson units measurement, which indicates the thickness of the ozone layer, descended from the normal level of 300 to less than 200.
Health officials have urged the residents of Tierra del Fuego, who are known in Spanish as 'fueginos', to remain inside from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm local time, and to wear caps with visors and to use sun-blocking creams on exposed skin when outside.
Since 1980, scientists have observed a dramatic cyclical thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica, usually lasting from August to December each year. The thinning of this protective layer has become known as a "hole" that is thousands of kilometres in diameter.
The phenomenon is the result of human activities, particularly the manufacture and use of products that contain gases known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) or halons.
In the past, CFCs were commonly used in refrigerators, aerosols, air-conditioning equipment and in solvent cleaning, while halons were used as flame retardants and in fire extinguishing materials.
Industrialised countries have almost completely halted production and use of these substances.
The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987, establishes the deadline to eliminate the use of ozone-depleting gases worldwide by 2010.
The industrialised North worked quickly toward that objective, making great strides, but the countries of the developing South have made little progress, leading experts to doubt that they will meet the goal in eight years.
"The status of the ozone hole over Antarctica and the South American southern cone has been relatively constant over the last few years," said Argentine physicist Rubén Piacentini, a member of a Latin American monitoring team.
"There were some significant fluctuations of the maximum extension of the hole and it made a prolonged stay over the Argentine Sea and the south of the country, reaching 29 million square km in October 2000, two million more than the previous year, but within a broader picture of no major fluctuations," Piacentini explained in a conversation with IPS.
The month, as the annual cycle began, the size of the ozone hole quickly stabilised, and "now is smaller than it was in 2001," and is following a similar pattern to last year's cycle, said the physicist.
Pablo Canziani, director of the Middle Atmosphere Group at the University of Buenos Aires, had a similar interpretation. "What has occurred in the last few days is a normal event that has happened for the last 10 or 12 years over Tierra del Fuego and the southern tip of the continent," he told IPS.
However, said Canziani, the phenomenon has grown more acute over that populated region, with extreme thinning to just 145 Dobson units, and forces the fueginos to take the same precautions in the middle of winter as they would if they were at a beach on summer vacation.
The problem no longer seems to be advancing at the pace recorded a few years back, and there are currently international legal instruments in place to reduce the activities that cause ozone depletion, but it is still too early to claim victory, agree experts.
Emiliano Ezcurra, environmental activist with the Argentine office of Greenpeace International, told IPS he thinks the problem now is that the public believes the ozone hole was cured with the signing of the Montreal Protocol.
"Our work is not yet done, and we run the risk that the Montreal Protocol could be weakened after having served as a valuable tool for achieving important successes," Ezcurra said.
People, flora and fauna will continue to be in grave danger for years to come, even if all use of CFCs and halons were eliminated today, because it would be a half-century before the ozone layer recovered its optimal level for protecting life on Earth, he explained.
Furthermore, "large developing nations like Brazil, China and India and the countries of Eastern Europe will increase emissions of these gases instead of reducing them if they do not receive adequate financial help to convert their industries," predicted the activist.
Schoolteacher Fuchs says she does what she can to educate her students about the importance of protecting themselves from the sun's rays, although they need some exposure to the sun for its health benefits, such as providing vitamin D for strong bones.
While you're at it, why don't you send the article I posted in reply 31 to him too?
It'd be a good idea if you read the Web sites linked in reply 30 and found out what's really happening (and the history of the issue).
Volcanic acidic gases do not in any significant way affect stratospheric ozone, because they do not reach the stratosphere in significant concentrations. Most of the acidic gases are added to the ocean by precipitation and neutralized in seawater.
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