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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SteveSadlov (11:49:41) :
I have a major concern about this. It may be a leading indicator of early impacts of the heliosphere decline.
Don;t worry, the sky is not falling, neither is the Heliosphere in decline. The overhyped NASA press release that Ulysses found a weaker solar wind during it latest polar passes compared to the ones 13 years prior, is disingenuous because they are not comparing apples with apples. The passes in 1994-1995 were two years before minimum, while the most recent passes were during [a drawn out] solar minimum. It is quite normal for the solar wind to come down from its high like this. It’s like making a big deal out of [for boreals] “it is colder today in October than last year in August”.
Leif Svalgaard (18:35:16) :
In January we receive 90 W/m2 more TSI than in July, or 7%. That should translate into a 7%/4 = 1.7% of 300K = 5K temperature difference. Because of the uneven land/sea distribution the effect is a bit smaller, but easily discernible.
I think that requires some explanation. Doesn’t your back-of-the-envelope calculation of temperature difference ignore the heat capacity of the oceans, landmasses and atmosphere? Wouldn’t an extra 90 W/m2 need much, much more time than 6 months to heat up the Earth by 5K?
Leif Svalgaard (19:17:20) :
I have often asked the modelers [e.g. Gavin Schmidt] to see if their model could handle the 90 W/m2 and what would be computed differently if you changed the 90 to 0 or to 180, …
As far as I know, climate models use time steps in the order of minutes. So any seasonal, even daily change in solar radiation can be accounted for.
Anne (12:39:45) :
Doesn’t your back-of-the-envelope calculation of temperature difference ignore the heat capacity of the oceans, landmasses and atmosphere? Wouldn’t an extra 90 W/m2 need much, much more time than 6 months to heat up the Earth by 5K?
Summer is not phase-lagged much, much more than 6 months [except, of course, any multiple of 12 months would work 🙂 ]
I used to live by the coast and the lag was perhaps a month or two.
“I have often asked the modelers [e.g. Gavin Schmidt] to see if their model could handle the 90 W/m2 and what would be computed differently if you changed the 90 to 0 or to 180, ”
As far as I know, climate models use time steps in the order of minutes. So any seasonal, even daily change in solar radiation can be accounted for.
I agree, except that they don’t want to try.
If I understood Gavin correctly, they also use an average TSI curve for all solar cycles [especially when trying to forecast the climate, when they don’t have any data]. I have also tried to get them to vary TSI a lot and see what happens. To no avail.
The interesting part about the CFC’s theory is the timing.
Dupont was the company that had controlled the patent on most of the refrigerants at the time that used CFC’s. For those of you unfamiliar with the patent system in the US, you control the patent for a set number of years, after which any company can copy the product without any fees or fines. The patent was running out for Dupont, and they had CFC free refrigerants conveniently waiting in the wings.
Dupont was the company that was the biggest backer of the CFC theory.
Coincidence?
Anthony Isgar (14:12:07):
I used to think that was the underlying cause, but it is a lot more complicated. Obtain a copy of “The Holes in the Ozone Scare” by Maduro and Schauerhammer. Their science is a little shaky, but the investigation of corporate shenanigans has never been refuted.
Richard (02:03:15) :
I might not be old enough to remember the global cooling scare but i remember well being told how we are destroying the ozone layer and killing the forests with acid rain. Spotted this story today, more evidence that acid rain is good for forests.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081021214850.htm
The article, while interesting, only mentions nitrate. It’s been long regarded that nitric acid is a fertilizer, albeit acidic. Sulfates and sulphuric acid from buring high-sulphur coal wern’t mentioned. Perhaps power plants have shifted to low sulphur coal, use scrubbers, or the Michigan forests are less susceptible to acid than the Adirondacks and New England.
Some of the concerns about acid rain killing spruce trees was misplaced – winds in winter storms would stress and break the root hairs on taller spruce. I saw many areas in the White Mountains here in NH where the tall spruce (only 15-25 feet) near the treeline would be dead, but the low spruce was doing just fine, at least as well as can be expected in that environment. It’s tough to be a tree in the White Mountains.
Other concerns, e.g. acid rain leaching aluminum from clay and other minerals, or the poor buffering of alpine lakes remained a concern until acid rain dropped off the radar here. Politics, fires, and murders get so much more air time….
Anne: Dr. Roy Spencer left this trap for you. (And Vitamino’s)
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
900 mb
90 mb
look at the yellow line. (note the axis of temperature is not real) and (curve is asymmetrical) as an ellipse.
FM
[…] may vanish by 2015. William Livingston,1 Matthew Penn1 New theory predicts the largest ozone hole over Antarctica will occur this month – cosmic rays at fa… __________________ ~Paradox "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible […]
Reply “Anne (11:55:38) :
Richard (02:03:15) :
but fixing AGW cannot be done without restructuring out whole world
Restructuring our whole world? Aren’t you exaggerating? Isn’t that alarmism of the other kind?”
To be clear i am referring to what the alarmists are calling for and how if we do not do what they say and the world does not warm as promised then they will be shown to be wrong. I think its fair to say what Gore and the like are calling for would require a restructuring of the world. Think the credit crunch is bad then try a natural resources crunch.
Reply: JimB (05:07:12) :
“..the average citizen will just start to ignore it as background noise and accept the loudest voices as true.”
Think you are right about the loudest voices but as the voices get louder and the claims get more extreme then the sooner these claims can be tested with real events. Take the claims of a ice free north pole this year, what will the papers print next year?
Reply: Ric Werme (17:02:15) :
Thanks for your taughts on acid rain. End of the day can’t complain about clean air. One of the biggest cause’s of confusion i think is people mixing up dirty air with CO2.
Has anyone been following the ozone hole at the nasa web site ? It doesn’t look like it’s growing crazy… It actually looks like it’s quite close to the average value.
” Leif Svalgaard (19:17:20) :
>>deleted<<
As far as I know, climate models use time steps in the order of minutes. So any seasonal, even daily change in solar radiation can be accounted for. ”
So in a climate models, you can use time increments of nanoseconds if you have enough computer power, and spatial increments of mm too.
But how does that help, if the real world actual measured physical data is taken at any old time they feel like it and reported for maybe twice a day (min/max), for some time some place, and with spatial increments that may be hundreds of km.
The point is that those computer climate models are not able to replicate the output of say the GISStemp ritual, let alone replicate the raw data input to it from actual places and actual times, where and when it was measured.
If they are supposed to be models of this actual planet that we live on, with its diverse geography, they at least shopuld be able to compute a rough picture of what we actually see however poor that view is.
[…] 2. “New theory predicts the largest ozone hole over Antarctica will occur this month – cosmic rays at fa…“ […]
Its well known that proton events from the Sun (large increase in high energy particles during solar storms) leads to large reductions in Ozone:
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=17240126
Richard (02:11:12) :
Reread your own post, you were expressing your own opinion. How cheap to hide behind the (exaggerated) opinions of others at the first sign of opposition.
Ok, so its them. Can you point me to any plan of Al Gore or any serious environmental organisation that requires a restructuring of our whole world? Prove it.
Leif Svalgaard (13:28:04) :
Summer is not phase-lagged much, much more than 6 months [except, of course, any multiple of 12 months would work 🙂 ]
I used to live by the coast and the lag was perhaps a month or two.
Ok, but weren’t you only talking about distance from the sun? The summer/winter difference is much greater than 7%. You have the longer days and larger angle the solar radiation strikes the earth.
Leif,
What do you think about these findings?
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/30oct_ftes.htm?list1276594
“What do you think about these findings?”
Working…..
Ron de Haan (18:25:54) :
What do you think about these findings?
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/30oct_ftes.htm?list1276594
This is just NASA’s usual hype. They have to justify their existence by announcing ‘discoveries’ and ‘breakthroughs’ [we have seen several examples of this lately – even discussed on this blog].
What they have ‘discovered’ is “We used to think the connection was permanent and that solar wind could trickle into the near-Earth environment anytime the wind was active,” says Sibeck. “We were wrong. The connections are not steady at all. They are often brief, bursty and very dynamic.”
This is old hat. Thirty years ago I wrote [in a chapter paper http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf (page 32ff) for the
Skylab Workshop that established coronal holes]:
“The implication seems to be that the coupling to the solar wind due to magnetic field connection is very weak unless the geometry is very favorable, i.e. the external field is almost anti-parallel to the dayside geomagnetic field. Due to ever-present fluctuations of the interplanetary magnetic field – considerably enhanced after passage through the bow-shock – favorable conditions for connection occur often enough at so many places on the magnetopause as to give the [false] impression that reconnection and hence geomagnetic activity occur for all orientations of the interplanetary magnetic field and varying in efficiency smoothly from a maximum for anti-parallel fields to a non-vanishing minimum for parallel fields.”
So, nothing new there. Nice though that they have actually been able to observe some of those events.
Anne (11:10:50) :
Ok, but weren’t you only talking about distance from the sun?
Anne, I have forgotten what this was all about. What is the issue and what is your problem? and where did I go wrong? 🙂
NOAA: “2008 Sees Fifth Largest Ozone Hole”
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20081103_ozone.html
I was wondering if anyone had picked up the NOAA story, and see that John-X did. Notice how NOAA can’t quite explain the size of the ozone hole.
[…] mention of the possibility of cosmic rays then, but in the face of a reversal, I wonder if maybe they’ll consider alternate suspects. […]
In the little time that I’ve looked at the O3 depletion scenario, one thing that jumps out at me is that during normal summer months the stratosphere above Antarctica is very dry. After a cold dark winter, stratospheric clouds are ormed and a source of water become available. Water is what allows these reactions to proceed rapidly. There is enough natural chlorine from naturally ocurring methyl chloride to facilitate these reactions. The key to this ozone delpetion scene is availability of water. Once it warms up the water is gone and the reaction stops. Has anybody looked into this?