To coincide with the upcoming “World Ozone Day 2014″ declared by the U.N. for September 16th, we have some “feel good” news coming out on the 25th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol
On September 10, an article written by Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press trumpeted a claim of good news with the headline: “Scientists say the ozone layer is recovering.” The basis for Borenstein’s headline is a statistical analysis:
For the first time in 35 years, scientists were able to confirm a statistically significant and sustained increase in stratospheric ozone, which shields the planet from solar radiation that causes skin cancer, crop damage and other problems.
…
From 2000 to 2013, ozone levels climbed 4 percent in the key mid-northern latitudes at about 30 miles up, said NASA scientist Paul A. Newman.
Later in the article, Borenstein cites this news as “one of the great success stories of international collective action in addressing a global environmental change phenomenon.”
Is it really?
Like many superficial claims made in the mainstream media, this one reveals a different story if you scratch ever so slightly below the surface. First, a bit of background on ozone depletion: ozone reduction in the upper atmosphere is said to be caused by a chemical interaction with the inert refrigerant chemical known as “chlorofluorocarbons,” or CFCs, which is found in the piping of millions of refrigerators and air conditioners worldwide. The loss of the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere will lead to normally reflected high-energy ultraviolet light reaching the Earth’s surface, causing more sunburns and skin cancer, disruption of ecosystems such as marine plankton and algae, and other photosynthetic biomass, with a large ripple effect.
The solution was to ban certain CFCs that were said to cause a loss of upper atmospheric ozone. Borenstein’s supposed “success story” hinges on a 1987 UN resolution called the Montreal Protocol:
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was designed to reduce the production and consumption of ozone depleting substances in order to reduce their abundance in the atmosphere, and thereby protect the earth’s fragile ozone Layer. (Source)
The Montreal Protocol certainly seems rooted with good intentions. Yet, as with so many other things we see from the UN, the actual implementation — once the cocktail parties, the speeches, and the self-congratulatory claims are over — doesn’t quite fit the original intent or the claims of success. Just a few months ago on Dec 11, 2013, NASA issued a press release containing this statement:
More than 20 years after the Montreal Protocol agreement limited human emissions of ozone-depleting substances, satellites have monitored the area of the annual ozone hole and watched it essentially stabilize, ceasing to grow substantially larger. However, two new studies show that signs of recovery are not yet present, and that temperature and winds are still driving any annual changes in ozone hole size.
…
“We are still in the period where small changes in chlorine do not affect the area of the ozone hole, which is why it’s too soon to say the ozone hole is recovering,” Strahan said. “We’re going into a period of large variability and there will be bumps in the road before we can identify a clear recovery.” (Source)
Within the span of nine months, NASA issued statements claiming of atmospheric ozone that “signs of recovery are not yet present,” there is “large variability,” it is “stabilizing,” and now, that the ozone problem is “recovering”.
So which is it? The answer may lie in the relevant political science, not the atmospheric. The Montreal Protocol is 25 years old this year, having been entered into force in 1989. When such milestones are reached, there is always pressure to make some statement that the work of the UN actually made some sort of difference.
Importantly, neither China nor India was willing to or required to participate in the Montreal Protocol. That left them free to do whatever they wanted, and that is exactly what they did. In February 1989, the New Scientist reported that China had a plan in place to boost their production of CFCs up to 10 times the present level. And, it wasn’t until the summer of 2007 that China actually got around to banning the production of ozone-depleting CFCs. So there has not been much in the way of reduction from China. In fact, as reported by Walter Russell Mead in The American Interest, China used the UN-sponsored Kyoto Protocol to run an emission credits scam operation:
It appears that Chinese coolant manufacturers have been producing an excess of a harmful greenhouse chemical in order to dispose of it responsibly under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). By using incinerators to cleanly burn off the chemical, HFC-23, these manufacturers were earning emission credits that they would in turn sell to developed world companies in order to help them hit their targets under the Kyoto Protocol.
This chicanery didn’t go unnoticed, however: the European Emissions Trading Scheme banned trade in those credits in May, and other working climate exchanges have said they’re going to follow suit. A very lucrative business for Chinese manufacturers is drying up very quickly, and they’re not taking it sitting down.
The EIA said an undercover investigation had shown that most of China’s non-CDM facilities were emitting HFC-23 already.“If all of these facilities [under the CDM] join China’s non-CDM and vent their HFC-23, they will set off a climate bomb emitting more than 2bn tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions by 2020,” it said.
Thanks (in part) to financial incentives to destroy CFCs under the Kyoto Protocol, there are even more CFCs in existence (in China) than there were before. This might explain why, more than 15 years after the Montreal Protocol was put into effect by the UN, NASA reported in 2006 that the ozone hole over the Antarctic reached a record size:
“From September 21 to 30, [2006], the average area of the ozone hole was the largest ever observed, at 10.6 million square miles,” said Paul Newman, atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Newman was joined by other scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in reporting that the ozone hole over the polar region of the Southern Hemisphere broke records for both area and depth in 2006. A little over a week after the ozone hole sustained its new record high for average area, satellites and balloon-based instruments recorded the lowest concentrations of ozone ever observed over Antarctica, making the ozone hole the deepest it had ever been. Source: NASA Earth Observatory
Or does it? Adding to the madness, now there is scientific uncertainty about the actual extent of the ozone problem as it relates to CFCs. More recent science has shown that the sensitivity of the Earth’s ozone layer might very well be 10 times less than was originally believed back in the 1980s when the alarm was first sounded. As reported in the prestigious science journal Nature, Markus Rex, an atmospheric scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, found that the breakdown rate of a crucial CFC-related molecule, dichlorine peroxide (Cl2O2), is almost an order of magnitude lower than the currently accepted rate:
“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. (Emphasis added)
One of the biggest issues with the Antarctic ozone hole is that it is not a year-round event. It peaks at its worst during the long, dark Antarctic winter. Observations show that it is highly correlated to weather patterns — more so than to actual atmospheric CFC content. The cold, the lack of sunlight to form new ozone, and the circular wind pattern in Antarctica all conspire to reduce ozone without any help from CFCs at all. Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and co-founder of the Weather Channel Joe D’Aleo says he thinks that the Antarctic ozone hole might simply be a permanent feature of the Earth that we only discovered when we went looking for the posited ozone reduction:
The data shows a lot of variability and no real trends after the Montreal protocol banned CFCs. The models had predicted a partial recovery by now. Later scientists adjusted their models and pronounced the recovery would take decades. It may be just another failed alarmist prediction.
Remember we first found the ozone hole when satellites that measure ozone were first available and processed (1985). It is very likely to have been there forever, varying year to year and decade to decade as solar cycles and volcanic events affected high latitude winter vortex strength. (Source)
With the claim in the AP story of “statistically significant” success being just a tiny improvement at higher latitudes, about 4%, while the Antarctic ozone hole continues mostly unabated, one wonders if the UN claim of success is nothing more than taking credit for simple natural variability.
The ozone hole may be a process that has been around for ages, which we only were able to notice as a result of recent technology.
This article originally appeared as a special report to PJMedia
Added: Ozone hole animation – watch the ozone hole form when Antarctic winter sets in.
“…one wonders if the UN claim of success is nothing more than taking credit for simple natural variability.”
well, someone has to….
/sarc
Not only someone has to “take credit”. There needs to be a huge mob that actually believes them. The entire affair is a remarkable achievement.
Several years ago I asked that very question of Cambridge university and the max plank institute
‘ how do we know whether the ozone hole hasn’t always been there and it’s just that prior to the 1950’s we didn’t have the means to measure it?’
Both replied that it was possible it had always been there but they didn’t think so and didn’t have the equipment to be able to resolve the matter either way
Tonyb
Tree rings. Mann says they tell all.
The question I have is one of how much CCl4 is produce by the world’s oceans in methane seeps. CH4+4Cl2 -> CCl4+4HCl . Granted the Cl in the oceans is in an ion form for the most part, but there is a bit of pressure down there at the bottom where the seeps are. Does anyone know if this process has been observed in the wild?
Tony – That question was asked by the atmospheric scientists I worked with in the late ’80s as well. It received the same treatment as negative (honest) questions about the Hockey Stick did 15 years later.
I asked the same question way back then, but accepted the “consensus” anyway.
Much older and wiser now (I hope)
Jim and Mango.
Thanks for those replies. Just because you see something for the first time doesn’t necessarily mean its unprecedented, merely that it might never have been measured before.
Mind you I like the honest answer ‘We don’t know.’ Its a pity those who reconstructed 1000 year old temperatures using novel proxies couldn’t admit to this huge area of doubt.
tonyb
Tonyb,
You are not the only one to ask this very same question .
Here is the good Dr. before he really became obsessed with co2.
Therefore the pause has been driven largely by co2. LOL. Comedic climate calamity.
In 1968, Gordon Charles Dobson published ” 40 Years Research on Atmospheric Ozone at Oxford-A History”. In this review article he mentions an interesting scientific discovery made in 1956/1957 at Halley Bay, Antarctica.. His team had noted a “Relative ozone lack” which occurred every winter, lasted about 3 months, then broke down at the beginning of summer. What was rediscovered and titled the “Ozone Hole” in the 1980s, was thought by Dobson to be due to 3 factors. Firstlyduring the long Antarctic winter there is no sun to produce ozone {ozone is produced by the sunshine interacting with our atmosphere] Secondly, the westerly winds that blow constantly through winter produce a polar vortex, which extends up through the stratosphere and stops infilling. Thirdly, their experiments led him to conclude that the colder the prevailing temperature in Antarctica, the larger the disparity in ozone. Look up the article on line. With the continuing yearly growth of Antarctic ice, we can expect record ozone hole size again this southern spring. PS, the only CFCs in Antarctica in the late 1950s wer being produced by MtErebus
Something that has always struck me as strange. If the majority of CFC’s are used in the northern hemisphere, then why is the hole over the South pole?
Just saying.
If you recall, some time ago (I don’t recall exactly when), there was a prediction by NASA(?) with great fanfare that a second hole was going to open in the north. Never happened. Haven’t heard bupkis about that since.
Also, why the so-called ozone hole appears over the poles when it is precisely over the poles where the concentration of CFCs is the lowest?
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gesNews/images/hirdls_cfc12_v7_d138_2006.png
source: http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/datareleases/hirdls_v007_data_release
Also, why the ozone depleting reaction goes faster over the poles, where the temperature is the lowest? That also goes against molecular thermodynamics
Because the “hole” is a totally natural occurrence. I can almost see the magnetic fields and ions at play. I postulate that it has always been there.
Ozone is not a stable component of the atmosphere. It is manufactured by a sunlight. Over the poles there is no sunlight in winter.
The ozone hole is actually part of the polar vortex or magnetospheric footprint. The footprint actually comes down through the ozone hole… It has nothing to do with CFC’s or global warming.
Not only that; as CFCs are very heavy, how do they manage to reach the altitude? Just asking.
It’s simple: CFCs are heavy. They fall from the industrialized Northern hemisphere down to the less industrialized southern hemisphere, down to the south pole, then they float up into the atmosphere and kill all the O3.
System,
Adore!
+1
– PS might you – possibly – have missed the
/sarc
– that I have learnt is required for all on here if not utterly pellucid.
Auto
Sorry Auto, should have used /sarc
But seriously, I haven’t seen any good explanation for Northern Hemisphere CFCs affecting the south pole, except for some special type of cloud hovering over the Antarctic eating ozone, or a simple answer, that I like, being that the earth (and so the atmosphere) is possibly very slightly pear-shaped, with the bottom of the pear at the south pole.
Ozone is continually produced (indirectly) by UV-C hitting O2 molecules. The angle of incidence of the sun’s UV-C rays at the equator is close to 90 degrees, so lots of ozone production. The angle of incidence at the poles is shallower, so less ozone created. With a pear shape, even greater angle of incidence at the bottom of the pear (south pole) than at the top, so a wider hole is left over the south pole. This explanation fits in well when you consider that the size of the hole varies seasonally when the sun changes its angle of incidence over the seasons.
Also, they talk about a hole or area of depletion, as if something is un-naturally destroying ozone. Ozone naturally decays into O2 over time, and thankfully is replenished every day by the sun. Rather than “depletion layer”, could use “area of reduced production”.
The Ozone Hole. Isn’t that what Al Gore was up in arms about before he started waving the Hockey Stick around?
Circular wind pattern and lack of sunlight in winter…aided (perhaps in a small way) by O2’s magnetism attracting it to the pole and the diamagnetism (push away from magnetic fields) of all the other atmospheric gases (ozone hole, CO2 hole, CH4 whole, N2 hole, noble gases hole). Note the ‘roll collar’ O3 concentration band around the hole.
What NASA was saying just last December:
“NASA Reveals New Results From Inside the Ozone Hole
December 11, 2013
NASA scientists have revealed the inner workings of the ozone hole that forms annually over Antarctica and found that declining chlorine in the stratosphere has not yet caused a recovery of the ozone hole.
More than 20 years after the Montreal Protocol agreement limited human emissions of ozone-depleting substances, satellites have monitored the area of the annual ozone hole and watched it essentially stabilize, ceasing to grow substantially larger. However, two new studies show that signs of recovery are not yet present, and that temperature and winds are still driving any annual changes in ozone hole size.”
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/new-results-from-inside-the-ozone-hole/#.VBNVCtm9LCS
What has changed?
Since 1960, the amount of UV from the Sun has decreased. Just don’t look at peaks, but look at the area under the curve!
Now, the 10.7 cm radio flux is caused by the Solar UV reaching the upper atmosphere. There, the UV it is absorbed and then re-radiated as lower frequency energy [electron excitation/relaxation]. The 10.7cm flux is an indication of the thermal energy in the upper atmosphere!
Today the “area under the curve” is 1/10th of the amounts in 1960. I expect the Ozone layer to shrink, and the Antarctic Ozone hole to expand. The Arctic will start showing mini-holes during winter.
This is the only thing that has changed: if you exclude the “reduction in fluorocarbons, increase in CO2, and the ‘climate warming spewing'”
I think the sun’s mostly unchanging TSI is a poor measure of the effects the sun has on the earth. The way the spectrum changes is likely to have impacts far beyond the small total energy changes. O3 production change due to UV change is a likely candidate IMO.
jlurtz said:
No, that’s nonsense. The 10.7cm (2800MHz) radio flux is radiated from magnetically active regions on the Sun itself, correlated with sunspot activity. It is not caused by “UV re-radiation”.
The ozone is more like a rough sea than a layer. It actually has columns that go through it like a plasma formation. It could be considered part of the double layer structure of earths atmosphere.
And the fact that the sun comes back while it’s still very cold up there
Funding?
Maybe.
Auto
My rooster started crowing this morning and within an hour the sun came up. Now that’s some rooster!
That’s nothing. Mine does it every morning! He’s even smart enough to stay inside when it’s raining.
Has anyone written the “social history” of the ozone hole controversy? Its parallel with global warming alarmism is quite telling, I think. And in the case of the ozone hole, the Nobel Prize was for actual science!
But there’s one big difference that indicates things seem to be getting better…
“More recent science has shown that the sensitivity of the Earth’s ozone layer might very well be 10 times less than was originally believed back in the 1980s when the alarm was first sounded.”
At least with CAGW, they are only off by 2 to 4 times on the difference between the consensus science and reality.
/sarc
Bruce
there is no ‘hole’………….
But saying “ozone hole” makes it sound so empt….er…..dangerous.
What is it that Steve Martin said about the ozone layer, what is directly above it and why we must save it?
Exactly, It is not a hole, it is a concentration gradient. Calling it a hole gives the impression that there is no ozone in the blue spot seen in the video above. But that is not true, The ozone concentration in the blue zone it is not zero, it is just lower than in the green zone. Sadly, there is no info in the video about what the colors mean. It might be around 140 dobson units for the blue zone and 250 for the green, but I am just guessing.
The green color in those NASA graphs are around the 400 DU. Normally, 250 DU are light blue. And dark blue is around 150-120 DU. But those low values are only seen during the Antarctic spring and go away at late spring. But over continents in moderate latitudes (ie: France, Germany, etc) the ozone concentratrion can be as high as 500 DU. For example, on June 6th, 2005 oozne values over Europe were these:
The ozone levels on June 6th, 2007 over Europe:
http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-10/ozono-6-jun-05.gif
It is still my thinking that the ozone hole plays a role in allowing heat energy to vent into space.
Agreed. The “lack of Ozone” allows the infrared transported into the upper atmosphere by the Polar Vortexes to exit into space. The Ozone acts as the “thermal blanket” trapping heat.
One can get an idea about the changes by observing the http://www.wunderground.com low temperatures for the Antarctic bases. http://www.wunderground.com/weather-forecast/zmw:00000.1.89606 -80F to -100F verses their estimate of -70F.
Finally people are getting it. The cold at the poles was not generated on earth. Its from cold molecules and ions coming down from space along the polar vortex, recombining and making record cold(simply put).
This is all about politics and preserving the jobs of all those who study ozone and legislate etc. there were moves to get rid of the UN Ozone Secretariat, as common sense suggested that it was no longer required, as ozone depleting substances were phased out 25 years ago. However it takes a bit more than common sense to stop such a UN gravy train.
Given that Ozone has not recovered, it is remarkable that we have all survived!
However my understanding is that HFC 23 is not ozone depleting so China can produce as much of this as it likes without affecting atmospheric ozone.
In other words…
Maybe the ozone hole has been around for thousands of years. Or maybe it’s new. Maybe it was caused by CHC’s and maybe it wasn’t. It might be getting bigger, smaller, or staying the same. We’re not quite sure. But it’s a climate catastrophe and you’re all going to die unless you hand over your money to support our causes.
“The loss of the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere will lead to normally reflected high-energy ultraviolet light reaching the Earth’s surface, causing more sunburns and skin cancer…”
————
I guess I would worry about that if I lived at the South Pole.
Mark, I to have thought with less than 2000 people living/working in Antarctica, wouldn’t have been cheaper to just get them some UVA sunscreen to protect them while they sunbath in the middle of winter?
Mark the rays of the sun would have to turn at about 90 degrees to reach the antarctic as they are passing the pole at a tangent to the earth. Just think about it, nowhere on earth will receive the sun’s rays through the ozone hole.
John
Sunlight? In Antarctica? in July? I wouldn’t worry about.it. Why is it that antarctic ozone levels are only measured in July when there is nearly no sunlight present to disassociate O2 molecules and create ozone?
Good point, I meant that the UV would have to turn at 90 degrees to reach the antarctic as it is absorbed by the ozone in the more direct route. UV does not reach the earth through the ozone hole! The ozone is supposed to protect us from that UV is it not?
It appears to me that there is an error in the penultimate paragraph. I believe the change shown below is the correct situation.
Shane Steele wrote:
Has anyone written the “social history” of the ozone hole controversy? Its parallel with global warming alarmism is quite telling, I think. And in the case of the ozone hole, the Nobel Prize was for actual science!
———–
Shane, I’m not even sure about that. Compare the social history of the ozone “holes” to the existence of satellite data for stratospheric ozone. A perfect match!
How valid is the premise that there haven’t been ozone “holes” at the poles since the Earth tilted on its access?
Er, access = axis.
[Well, the holes at both ends must be the polar access points…. Else tales about the polar tilt could not be spun. 8<) .mod]
Gotta admit I’m confused. The ozone hole is over Antarctica. This article is discussing a 4 percent increase in ozone levels in mid-NORTHERN latitudes. How do these two relate? Where exactly are these mid-northern latitudes?
I understand that there is a smaller hole over the Arctic and that both holes occur during their respective winters. So is this 4 percent increase also related to seasonal fluctuations? Because I never quite understood how a hole that formed at high latitudes in winter could cause additional skin cancers. Winter at high latitudes has less sun due to axial tilt and who goes out without clothes on in winter at high latitudes to get exposed the sun anyway?
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
It’s too bad that Borenstein’s article is ostentatiously illustrated with diagrams of the Antarctic Ozone “Hole”, because, as Taphonomic points out, the “ozone hole” isn’t the big news. Here’s the money quote:
“From 2000 to 2013, ozone levels climbed 4 percent in the key mid-northern latitudes at about 30 miles up, said NASA scientist Paul A. Newman.”
With regard to the “hole”, Borenstein’s article confirms PJ Media’s point about its persistence:
“The ozone layer is still far from healed. The long-lasting, ozone-eating chemicals still lingering in the atmosphere create a yearly fall ozone hole above the extreme Southern Hemisphere, and the hole hasn’t closed up. Also, the ozone layer is still about 6 percent thinner than in 1980, by Newman’s calculations.”
Note, however, that the small “increase” in stratospheric ozone is described as “statistically significant”. After reading WUWT and Climate Audit for years, that phrase now pegs my BS-o-meter. Looking at the bar graph of ozone levels, I see 2000 was a local minimum (cherry-picked starting point?), 2002 was higher than 2013 (Outlier! Heretic! Excommunicate!), and 2007-8 was a two-year “recovery” from the low level of 2006, followed by another decline. Unfortunately statistics makes my head hurt, so perhaps someone else can take a closer look at the real statistical significance of this “recovery”.
I’ve always found the ozone hole thing ridiculous. The ozone hole is only really present in Antarctica during the southern hemisphere winter. i.e. total absence of sunlight. How am I going to get radiation-caused cancer and mutations from the sun when the sun just isn’t there? Even in the summer, the sun is very weak at the poles. Does it really make a difference?
Well done.
I searched WUWT for ozone and there are many posts tagged as such. The first one likely before I started reading in 2008.
One of my first comments was about the ocean being a source of halogen compounds.
There is ample satellite data that shows the ozone scare is a natural phenomenon and not caused by CFCs. http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Ingles/Crista.html
I see. Lack of light, including high-energy ultraviolet light causes cancer during dark Antarctic winters due to the ozone hole in a region where no one lives. It is certainly worse than we thought.
BTW, ozone never reflects UV, it absorbs it.
Ooh, this is just a training run for them taking credit for breaking the back of AGW, once the temperatures start falling. “We did it! We beat global warming! Give us more money if you want to keep this problem solved!”. Retch.
Exactly. These charlatans would be crowing about “solving” global warming if they had been able to pull off their Copenhagen plan.
Amazing how easy solving non problems are,they even use the same solution every time.
Higher tax bite and more regulation.
Perhaps we should popularize the idea that they’re responsible for brutal winters … ?
It might hasten the endgame.
Take what nature does naturally and blame it on Man. Then some men will claim a moral responsibility to control Man.
The “Ozone Hole” didn’t stick against the wall very well.
The whole “Climate Whatever’ appears to be pealing off.
That Markus Rex quote is from and outdated citation. The discrepancy has been resolved.
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090507/full/news.2009.456.html
If you read the full article, the discrepancy may be resolved. Not everyone completely agrees.
Thanks for finding that John.
Would be good to have the article above updated to mention this important discrepancy.
I’m surprised by how you failed to highlight the biggest point of the story. That the recovery of the ozone hole means CO2 restrictions are a good idea.