September 12th, 2008 Ozone hole over the Antarctic
From NASA News
This is considered a “moderately large” ozone hole, according to NASA atmospheric scientist, Paul Newman. And while this year’s ozone hole is the fifth largest on record, the amount of ozone depleting substances have decreased about 3.8% from peak levels in 2000. The largest ozone hole ever recorded occurred in 2006, at a size of 10.6 million square miles.
The Antarctic ozone hole reached its annual maximum on Sept. 12, 2008, stretching over 27 million square kilometers, or 10.5 million square miles. The area of the ozone hole is calculated as an average of the daily areas for Sept. 21-30 from observations from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite.
What I find most interesting is this press release from last year from NASA:
NASA Keeps Eye on Ozone Layer Amid Montreal Protocol’s Success
NASA scientists will join researchers from around the world to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol.
In that PR they write:
“The levels of ozone depleting compounds in the atmosphere continue to drop, thanks to 20 years of scientific advances following the signing of the Montreal Protocol.”
“The Montreal Protocol has been a resounding success,” said Richard Stolarski, a speaker at the symposium from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “The effect can be seen in the leveling off of chlorine compounds in the atmosphere and the beginning of their decline.”
No mention of the possibility of cosmic rays then, but in the face of a reversal, I wonder if maybe they’ll consider alternate suspects. Sometimes I think of our current atmospheric science like a stubborn district attorney that refuses to look beyond what he considers the prime suspect.
“We’ve got our criminals and their names are CO2 and CFC, I’m confident that the forensics will show them guilty beyond a shadow of the doubt”.
Trouble is, if forensics had the same sloppy data gathering and adjustment procedures as we’ve seen climate science, the defense would have the forensics tossed out easily.
h/t to David Walton
Smokey. Never try to teach a pig to sing!
Mike Bryant says:
No, it is in physics. However, I took two good semesters of economics, which is clearly more than you can say since you seem to have no understanding whatsoever of the concept of an “externality”, one of the most basic concepts in economics.
Smokey says:
Speaking of a lack of reading comprehension, as anyone reading my post would be able to see, I understood what you said…In fact correctly intuited what you meant even though you had stated it rather obscurely and indirectly. As for the rest of your post, you are another one who seems to be a “market fundamentalist”, believing religiously in “free markets” without a basic understanding of the actually economic science of markets, when they succeed and when they fail, and how such failures (such as “externalities”) can be corrected.
I guess in your world, these “leftists” and people out to destroy the U.S. economy now must include many major U.S. corporations, such as DuPont and Ford, even some electric power companies and so forth, who have called for action on addressing AGW. Strange world that you inhabit!
Richard Sharpe says:
You guys might feel somewhat smug and superior since your views are in the majority on this website. However, you might want to think about how you present yourselves to a larger world where you are losing the argument. (Note how both candidates for President have embraced cap-and-trade for greenhouse gas emissions, and as I noted, a growing number of corporations have also expressed support for such an approach.) I am actually doing you folks a favor by trying to prune off some of the most ridiculous and misguided arguments that you make. I think it would actually be healthy to have some intelligent skeptical voices around on the issue of AGW. Alas, these skeptic websites seem to be almost completely dominated by arguments that may look good to your fellow travelers but will be considered laughable by the larger community of scientists (and informed laypeople). It’s rather sad actually.
Joel,
I do understand that externalities cause market failures. The government is already too pervasive. Why not just say that you prefer government control of the economy? At least then you don’t have to keep talking around it.
I agree we’re losing the political argument. But not as badly as you think. Not as badly as before. And I question whether we are losing the scientific argument. I think we don’t know as much as we need to, but there is a lot more study being done and a lot more students at work on it.
And I’ve been here before, what with Ehrlich and the Club of Rome. So far I see much the same pattern.
I should also point out that you are welcome here, and even your most critical posts are approved (often by me). If I am not mistaken, you will have read my views on the matter, so I won’t repeat them here.
We don’t often get that treatment from the other side of the fence. That has an effect on us; we are human.
We either take your advice, or we don’t. I think you may be right. I doubt it, but concede the possibility. I think most of us present, even including the more sanguine among us would agree, at least if pressed to the wall.
I would advocate a different approach even if you are right, but that’s another argument entirely.
Ultimately it is the data that is going to decide the issue. If temperatures continue to drop and cycles flip cold, that will be good evidence. If the temperatures spike upwards in spite of it, that, too. will be good evidence. And of course, the sun will have its say.
Regardless, you are part of the family, too. We may not agree with much of what you say, but you do and will continue to get to say it.
Evan Jones,
Well said.
You only seem to think that because you ignore the evidence in the peer-reviewed literature that it has and instead rely on someone using suspect data available on the web that he doesn’t understand very well to make some plots.
IIRC, there was a new satellite that is going to track humidity mentioned on this site a while back. We’ll see what gives.
As for your analogy about putting the farm in hock, if you believe that reducing (or sequestering) our carbon emissions is so difficult, what then do you think will happen when we run out of fossil fuels?
I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think we’ll have moved on long before we even run short. As it is, potential reserves are ‘way up from 1974 in spite of increase of use. I think it’s a non-issue.
We will have to get off of fossil fuels eventually. Really the only question is whether we do it before or after we have caused irreparable harm to our environment.
Yes and no.
Yes, we will (because we’ll find something better, not ’cause we have to). No, I don’t think we’ll cause irreparable harm to the environment.
Fear not. the UDCs will develop and then they will take just as good care of their environments as the DCs. #B^1 When nations become wealthy, they gain both the inclination and the power to maintain their space.
Speaking of wealth, this article on physorg might presage a future of untold riches and possibilities. Alternatively, we could walk the collective path to poverty and despair.
http://www.physorg.com/news145561984.html
Mike Bryant says:
Because a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax to correct an externality is not the government taking control of the economy! It is using the market-based system to correct an externality. Do you realize that exactly the same sort of solution was proposed to regulate traditional pollutants from power plants by the Bush Administration in place of the Clean Air Act. They called it the Clear Skies Initiative and touted the fact that it was such a market-based approach. (It was generally opposed by Democrats and environmentalists, although this opposition was not because they didn’t like the approach but rather because the White House had raised the caps on the original EPA proposal so that the cleanup would be slower than would have occurred under the Clean Air Act. In fact, I think one Democratic senator introduced an alternate proposal that was like the Bush Administration’s but with caps similar to those originally proposed by the EPA but Cheney and company got their hands on it. There was also some concern that a cap-and-trade system could create local area where pollutants were high, which is not an issue for CO2 where only the total emissions matter not where they are emitted.)
evanjones says:
Thanks. I appreciate those kind words, your general approach to this debate, and your contribution to approving my posts on this website.
Joel,
How I long for the traditional pollutants. Back in the sixties and seventies, we had pollutants that you could really sink your teeth into. These new, fresh pollutants are just so ephemeral. I guess they fit in with the new age music, and the new socialism light. I’m just so old fashioned that I will never be able to get my mind around plant food disguised as pollution.
Now, water vapor, there’s a greenhouse gas that everyone could rally around.
Joel (& Mike): Thanks. Not at all.
Particulates and your standard toxins are a lot cheaper to regulate. I am not as concerned with the socialist aspects as some (though I am not stoked with treaties that, in effect, make the senate alone capable of trumping federal law). I even agree that external regulation is sometimes necessary. Within living memory, we used to shoot the strikers down in the streets.
My problem is not with standard pollutant control.
My objection to CO2 regulation is
A.) It is very costly (both in terms of direct cost and inhibited growth), and the worst effects will hit the poorest hardest.
B.) The evidence is not good enough and the emergency (stipulating there is an emergency) isn’t dire enough to warrant precipitous action. We can afford to wait and see and the evidence pours in. There is a huge amount more study now than ten years ago. Give it a little time as the pump is primed.
C.) If legislation is put in place it is very hard to get rid of, even if it can be proven it was never necessary. This is human nature. Therefore we should be very sure it is necessary before acting.
D.) A technological fix such as (but not limited to) a solarsynchronous pole-to-pole horizonal satellite array could solve the issue at a (relatively) minuscule cost (a mere couple of $tril.). This is not a “green” nor a “behavioral” approach, thus it is unfashionable among many. But it (or some other indirect approach) could be both effective and cheap.
E.) In any case, C may not have the desired effect. Even if the IPCC is correct, GW would not be much affected, just delayed by a few years.
F.) If C happens, D will be put aside. I favor the reverse!
Evanjones, to take each of your objections in turn:
Well, no doubt there is a real cost associated with this…but the costs have been exaggerated by those with a vested interest in the status quo. Furthermore, as everyone here…even Smokey…admits, fossil fuels will get more expensive eventually as the supply / demand curves shift. So, not dealing with it now is really just putting off costs that we would have to face eventually…plus adding in the additional costs associated with the environmental damage from climate change and ocean acidification.
As I noted, you will always find people who will make this argument. The nature of science is such that you are never going to have 100% certainty about anything so if you set the bar high enough, you will not be able to reach it. Ten or fifteen years ago, this argument was being made by most of those with a vested interest in the status quo, such as fossil fuel companies, power companies, and automobile manufacturers. Now, even many…if not most…of them have abandoned this claim as no longer scientifically tenable.
Furthermore, there is not as much time as you think. There is a huge amount of inertia both in the climate system and in our society. If we wait until the negative effects are too obvious, it will be some combination of too late and too costly to prevent further such effects.
It is also human nature to put off dealing with problems…particularly ones that do not have a dramatic onset but build up slowly over time. If the science subsequently really does swing the other way, there will be plenty of pressures on legislatures from vested interests to ease up on the goals. In the meantime, we will have done things that we would need to eventually do anyway independent of the issue of climate change.
There are lots of good reasons to be skeptical of both the costs of such geoengineering fixes and their effectiveness (and ability not to create other problems). In fact, there is already an emerging understanding among climate scientists of how trying to inject aerosols into the stratosphere to cause cooling would produce some detrimental effects (in terms of rainfall distribution, for example). It seems somewhat ironic to me that the same people who argue that there is too much uncertainty to say, “This is a problem and we need to reduce the perturbation we are making on the climate system” are so quick to suggest counter-perturbations, since such an approach would seem to me to demand a much better understanding of the climate system than the former.
Note, by the way, that technological fixes in general and legislation in particularly are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the reason that we need the legislation is to provide the market signals for the technological fixes to be developed. Technologies are not generally researched, developed, and commercialized when there is no market incentive to do so (unless this is done by governments or out of altruism on the part of people with a lot of money).
A cap-and-trade system will encourage the development of technological solutions, at least on small scales. (It may be harder to create a system that would provide sufficient encouragement for the huge geoengineering solutions that you are thinking of…and perhaps some government research has a role to play here, but again, I think these solutions will prove more problematic anyway.)
Not sure what you are basing this on. This is presumably an argument about Kyoto which, since it only covered emissions over like a 4-year period, could not (in the strict sense that you speak of here) possibly delay the consequences more than 4 years, since reducing emissions to zero for 4 years and then going back up to our previous levels would only delay things by 4 years. The point of such legislation / treaties is to get us on a new trajectory in terms of future greenhouse gas emissions…and this is done by creating the market incentives for the development of the technologies that will get us there. The specific emissions targets for the specific years are not so much the ends in and of themselves but rather the means to the end.
Like I say, I don’t see how someone who truly thinks that we know less about the climate system than we think we do would want to favor solutions that require we understand it much better (in fact, IMHO, better than we actually do) rather than solutions that will still be effective in light of greater uncertainty. (At any rate, I don’t even think that your claim is necessarily true, as C would probably create at least some incentives for investments by the marketplace in researching D…and governments could help with investments in D.)
Joel Shore, cap-and-trade is not “using the market;” it is making people pay the government for the right to do what they can already do for free. Real markets compete over resources and how they’re used, which creates wealth. Permission from the government to do business (which is all a carbon credit is) is not a resource.
And since when is the Bush administration the litmus test for free market principles? Should I suppose that steel tariffs and corn subsidies are part of free market capitalism?
Well, no doubt there is a real cost associated with this…but the costs have been exaggerated by those with a vested interest in the status quo.
Stern himself estimates it will cost 1% of GWP (1.8% for DCs if the burden is to be borne by them).
Others without “vested interest”: So as not to clog up space: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/22/global_warming_mitigation_vs_adaptation/
As I noted, you will always find people who will make this argument.
As of this time, you may include me among them. The main reason I feel this way is that temperatures are not up over the last decade and appear to be on the decline. And CO2 feedback theory is in dispute (we each have already cited conflicting opinions). We should wait until that vital issue is resolved before taking action on that very point.
It is also human nature to put off dealing with problems…particularly ones that do not have a dramatic onset but build up slowly over time.
Yes. But I don’t think this is indicated by the current data. And I really, really doubt the window is as narrow as five or ten years.
A cap-and-trade system will encourage the development of technological solutions, at least on small scales.
So they say. I say that with encouragement like that we won’t be needing any discouragement.
I also think that the race is already very much on to come up with viable alt-energy. (Which alone could render the whole cap issue moot.) I am afraid, however, we are being prodded in the direction of the UNviable variety.
Not sure what you are basing this on.
A four year program is unlikely to delay AGW by several years. See link above.
Like I say, I don’t see how someone who truly thinks that we know less about the climate system than we think we do would want to favor solutions that require we understand it much better (in fact, IMHO, better than we actually do) rather than solutions that will still be effective in light of greater uncertainty.
We don’t need to know any more about climate than we do to know that shade cools. And although we do not know enough about climate, two things are evident: First, we are learning a lot more every year, and second, wealth-driven technology is accelerating every year. Killing world growth by a third to half is not going to be helpful to either of these things. And I have little confidence in government “help” taken from a dwindling pool of wealth of which the government itself is dwindler-in-chief.
Josh S,
You seem to have no understanding whatsoever of the concept of an “externality”, one of the most basic concepts in economics.
However, you are correct. The free market is only a distant memory in America today. Perhaps everyone here should reread “Wealth of Nations”.
evanjones: Well, we have each stated our positions. I will just comment on this one thing:
The estimates from the IPCC report are reductions in world growth over the next 50 years of <0.12% per year in order to go for the most stringent emissions targets. Since it is reasonable to assume GDP growth rate of around 2 to 3% per year, I don’t see how it will kill the growth by a third to a half. (I am not sure where you are getting the 1% reduction in GDP that you quote from Stern, but you seem to be assuming that they meant 1% lower growth each and every year, which I am quite sure is not what they meant.)
Yes, I think we understand each other. We merely disagree.
(I am not sure where you are getting the 1% reduction in GDP that you quote from Stern, but you seem to be assuming that they meant 1% lower growth each and every year, which I am quite sure is not what they meant.)
From Stern, himself. Yes, every year. Around half a $tril.
Estimates for Kyoto (Molinari Inst.) range from 0.8% (Germany) to 1.1% (UK) to 2.3% (Italy) to 3.1% (Spain)
If I thought the situation to be as bad as they say, I would go along. But I don’t. Not yet, anyway.
Evan is right and Joel is wrong. Both are sincere, I think. So am I.
Rather than refute Mr. Shore point by point, I’ll mention once again that:
* The climate is absolutely normal; it is well within normal and natural historical parameters, whether you go back 1,500 years, 15,000 years, or 15 million years. The climate naturally fluctuates, and the current normal fluctuations are relatively minor. Yes, there is a *slight* greenhouse effect, but it is insignificant; other minor forcings overwhelm its tiny effect, which is so small that it can not be reliably measured against the climate’s background noise.
* The AGW/catastrophe premise is based on computer models, not on empirical proof; sea ice is not disappearing, sea levels are not rising, and despite steady increases in CO2, the planet is cooling.
* Many of those predicting runaway global warming refuse to publicly archive their taxpayer-funded data, thus making an end run around the scientific method, which requires the possibility of falsification. This isn’t national defense, this is the climate. There is no credible rationale for refusing to disclose the taxpayer paid data and methodology used to produce scary looking hockey stick graphs.
The simple facts are that big money is involved, and the climate issue has become deliberately politicized by the likes of Al Gore, the UN/IPCC, George Soros, James Hansen, Gavin Schmidt, Hollywood stars, etc.
Money and politics has corrupted them. If not, why the almost universal lack of transparency? What are they trying to hide?
evanjones (12:41:47) :
D.) A technological fix such as (but not limited to) a solarsynchronous pole-to-pole horizonal satellite array could solve the issue at a (relatively) minuscule cost (a mere couple of $tril.). This is not a “green” nor a “behavioral” approach, thus it is unfashionable among many. But it (or some other indirect approach) could be both effective and cheap.
I also favor D, not because I believe that we are entering a runaway warming period, but because, if designed well enough, it can be used for runaway cooling periods. Actually the only true prediction is that an ice age is coming sometime in the future, we just do not know when, so satelite mirrors that could add sunshine will be crucial then.
anna: Point.
Joel,
You say that many corporations now support ‘cap-and-trade’ as if this is some kind of evidence of the correctness of the science.
I would hazard a guess that the main reasons they support such a scheme is either they can see a way of making money out of it or they see which way the political wind is blowing and are going along with it, or both. I doubt very much that their decisions in this area are based on the supposed science.
Smokey,
That is a very well reasoned response to the continual obfuscation coming from the AGW camp. It really is as simple as you say, despite attempts by some who believe that complexity somehow adds to the debate. I believe your approach of simplicity and cool logic will win the day.
When we hear a response to the simple points you have made, watch for the subtle denigration of you and your thoughts, the appeal to authority and a scholarly, pompous explanation of why you are wrong.
I believe that this debate will not be won or lost in the hollow halls of academe, but rather in the workplaces of hard-working Americans. Your direct, simple and truthful explanations are meat and potatoes for the masses.