From a University of Waterloo press release (h/t to commenter Rob)
WATERLOO, Ont. (Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008) — A University of Waterloo scientist says that cosmic rays are a key cause for expanding the hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole — and predicts the largest ozone hole will occur in one or two weeks.
Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy who studies ozone depletion, said that it was generally accepted for more than two decades that the Earth’s ozone layer is depleted by chlorine atoms produced by sunlight-induced destruction of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere. But more and more evidence now points to a new theory that the cosmic rays (energy particles that originate in space) play a major role.
The ozone layer is a layer in Earth’s atmosphere that contains high concentrations of ozone. It absorbs almost all of the sun’s high-frequency ultraviolet light, which is potentially damaging to life on Earth and causes diseases such as skin cancer and cataracts. The Antarctic ozone hole can be larger than the size of North America.
Lu said that data from several sources, including NASA satellites, show a strong correlation between cosmic ray intensity and ozone depletion. Lab measurements demonstrate a mechanism by which cosmic rays cause drastic reactions of ozone-depleting chlorine inside polar clouds.
Satellite data in the period of 1980-2007, covering two full 11-year solar cycles, demonstrate the significant correlation between cosmic rays and ozone depletion.
“This finding, combined with laboratory measurements, provides strong evidence of the role of cosmic-ray driven reactions in causing the ozone hole and resolves the mystery why a large discrepancy between the sunlight-related photochemical model and the observed ozone depletion exists,” Lu said.
For example, the most recent scientific assessments of ozone depletion by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, which use photochemical models, predict ozone will increase by one to 2.5 per cent between 2000 and 2020 and Antarctic springtime ozone is projected to increase by five to 10 per cent between 2000 and 2020.
In sharp contrast, Lu said his study predicts the severest ozone loss — resulting in the largest ozone hole — will occur over the South Pole this month. The study also predicts another large hole will probably occur around 2019.
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“the largest ozone hole ”
Is that the largest ozone hole ever recorded?
Regarding CFC’s, does anybody know if NASA or any other organization has ever measured the amount of CFC’s in the atmosphere by altitude? I’ve searched and searched for this information and have never found anything. This to me is odd because somebody must have measured CFC concentration by altitude at some point in the past and shown the data to governments to help get the CFC ban into place.
Interesting,
If true, then we could have a new barometer for predicting cloud cover, and thus global temperature variation.
By correlation do they mean ozone is directly proportional or inversely proportional to cosmic ray intensity?
This may be connected to an article published last year concerning the whole CFC “theory”, referenced here:
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002341.html
And was this prediction right?
Bring back Halon 1301 fire extinguishers. The best all rounders there ever were. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halon_1301
Why? In practice, the operators of many Halon 1301 total flooding systems evacuated the space on impending agent discharge. In other words, just depart the scene, because the Halon 1301 would have the fire out in seconds.
No, you can’t have mine.
Perry
Nasa Ozone Hole data page:
http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Hmmmm – Not another scientist disagreeing with the WMO and the UN. Whatever next. Will he be branded an anthropogenic ozone hole (AOH) sceptic (or denier).
IPCC claims Ozone depletion causes global cooling:
“observed stratospheric O3 losses over the past two decades have caused a negative forcing of the surface-troposphere system”[42] of about −0.15 ± 0.10 watts per square meter (W/m²)”
I have also seen the ozone hole used as the explanation for lack of warming in the Antarctic.
From the article above it sounds like the current consensus is that ozone is expected to increase and the ozone hole diminish resulting in less negative forcing. I wonder how this has been modeled.
We can not heat our homes when it is cold because it will cause warming, we can not cool our homes when it is hot because it depletes the ozone layer and causes cooling, hmmmm. Our position at the top of the evolutionary ladder is being challenged because of our ability to adapt ourselves to our environment. I feel like watching “Planet of the Apes” again.
Looks like from the page linked by kunhkat, Lu missed his prediction, but came close on area.
From the bar graphs shown on the NASA page referred to above, it looks like the southern Sept/Oct ozone hole leveled off in the early to mid 90s, and has stayed surprisingly stable since. Weren’t stratospheric CFC levels supposed to keep going up until about 2000 and then come down?
I’m not questioning the theory, just asking a question.
One major problem with CFC’s, at least in the Antarctic is how they get there. Most were produced in the north, the U.S., Europe, Japan. There is little mixing of NH and SH air, the jet streams keep them separate. So how did all those nasty CFC’s make it to the south pole and clobber the ozone? And why not an even bigger hole up north?
I recall an article in Science News many years back that a Dutch team had first noticed the ozone hole in the 1950’s (before we produced massive amounts of CFC’s) and that observations had tracked growth and shrinkage with the solar cycle. Lief may have to correct me on this, but I think GCR’s would also track the solar cycle.
Of course, all this was long before the politically correct Montreal Protocol which blamed everything on that nasty refrigerant and made everything more expensive and less efficient.
Does anyone have the reference to the original article reference. Lu originally published on oxone and cosmic rays in 2001 in Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 078501 (2001) [4 pages]. However I can find no reference to his 2008 article. Presumably there is a graph which would be interesting to see!!
There are skeptics who do not believe that CFCs are the cause of the Ozone hole (and their arguments are interesting).
The debate over CFC’s is over folks! The Montreal Protocol has solved the problem.
Move along – nothing to see here.
Greenhouse gas trends including the two most important CFCs here.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi_2008.fig2.png
According to the NASA Ozonehole watch timeline linked above, it appears there is more correlation to CFCs than to the solar cycle.
As Antarctica warms up due to global warming, the penguins will need more refrigerators. The vicious cycle continues. Temperatures have already reached a blistering -56F this spring at Vostok.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/89606/2008/10/25/MonthlyHistory.html
Bill Illis (10:21:44)
Thanks. I’ve seen those, but I’m pretty sure those are tropospheric levels.
I seem to recall stratospheric levels were supposed to peak later.
John M (10:54:14) :
Bill Illis (10:21:44)
Thanks. I’ve seen those, but I’m pretty sure those are tropospheric levels.
I seem to recall stratospheric levels were supposed to peak later.
Try here, Figs 8 & 9
http://omsriram.com/GlobalWarming.htm
The WMO/UNEP report “Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2006” by the Scientific Assessment Panel of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer [http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/arep/gaw/reports/ozone_2006/pdf/exec_sum_18aug.pdf] states: “Model simulations suggest that changes in climate, specifically the cooling of the stratosphere associated with increases in the abundance of carbon dioxide, may hasten the return of global [(60°S-60°N)] column ozone to pre-1980 values by up to 15 years”. Apparently CO2 has positive effects.
Is this not more a question of a less active sun in general, where the cosmic rays are inversely coupled to?
If the sun is very active, more ozone is formed near the equator and the temperature gradient of the stratosphere between the equator and the poles is increased. This shifts the jet stream position towards the poles too, including rain patterns in the troposphere. This may influence the Antarctic vortex in winter (here I am speculating) and hence the strength of the ozone hole in spring.
Thus while solar activity is the origin in all cases, it doesn’t necessary include that cosmic rays are the real trigger of the reactions.
I guess I can google too (time I got off my lazy duff).
Looks like the peak is a little after 1995.
Guess that’s close enough.
Is this caused by the shrinking heliosphere?
Sun’s protective ‘bubble’ is shrinking
Retired engineer- you forgot one space shuttle. The fuel tank spray-on insulating foam chemistry was switched to reduce CFC emissions associated with the spray process (perhaps a few parts per quintillion of total US CFC emissions, but that’s just a detail…). There were clearly some adhesion problems with the new formulation that eventually led to the loss of a shuttle.
There are some big problems with the CFC-ozone causal link claimed by promoters of the Montreal protocol. There was a paper in Nature last year from NASA JPL that reported measured reaction rates for one particular chemical pathway to be much too slow compared with the assumed reaction rate that led to the predictions of ozone destruction rates from A-CFC’s.
http://www.junkscience.com/sep07/Chemists_poke_holes_in_ozone_theory.htm
Some of the quotes from the authors and other atmospheric chemistry/ozone experts are very enlightening. For example,
“This must have far-reaching consequences,” Rex says. “If the measurements are correct we can basically no longer say we understand how ozone holes come into being.” What effect the results have on projections of the speed or extent of ozone depletion remains unclear.”
“The rapid photolysis of Cl2O2 is a key reaction in the chemical model of ozone destruction developed 20 years ago2 (see graphic). If the rate is substantially lower than previously thought, then it would not be possible to create enough aggressive chlorine radicals to explain the observed ozone losses at high latitudes, says Rex. The extent of the discrepancy became apparent only when he incorporated the new photolysis rate into a chemical model of ozone depletion. The result was a shock: at least 60% of ozone destruction at the poles seems to be due to an unknown mechanism, Rex told a meeting of stratosphere researchers in Bremen, Germany, last week.”
“Other groups have yet to confirm the new photolysis rate, but the conundrum is already causing much debate and uncertainty in the ozone research community. “Our understanding of chloride chemistry has really been blown apart,” says John Crowley, an ozone researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz, Germany.”
“Until recently everything looked like it fitted nicely,” agrees Neil Harris, an atmosphere scientist who heads the European Ozone Research Coordinating Unit at the University of Cambridge, UK. “Now suddenly it’s like a plank has been pulled out of a bridge.”
But Montreal Protocolists continue to point to the ‘success’ of the CFC-banning protocol as a blueprint for carbon dioxide controlling protocols. I guess it depends on your measure and definition of ‘success’.
*sigh*.
re: deadwood (10:17:10) :
“The debate over CFC’s is over folks! The Montreal Protocol has solved the problem.”
And the Montreal Protocol is a fine model of how the nations of the world can work together to resolve a global “problem”. Right.