NOTE: It has been pointed out to me by an email from a regular WUWT reader that some people get a different conclusion from the headline other than what I was thinking of. So, for those who didn’t read the paper fully to the conclusion, I offer this clarification:
In the conclusions of the paper here (PDF) there is this:
Thus, the above facts (1)–(5) force one to conclude that the CR-driven electron-induced reaction is the dominant mechanism for causing the polar O3 hole.
(CR stands for Cosmic Rays) The above conclusion is what I based my title on. The titled also merited a “may be” caveat until replication of the work is done by another scientist. Anyone reaching a different conclusion, such as one of CFC’s not being involved, is erroneous. Cosmic Rays are drivers (or some may say a catalyst) of a complex reaction involving CFC’s, resulting in ozone ‘O3‘ depletion, and that is what is referred to in the conclusion.
While I had considered changing the headline to make it clearer for those who don’t read scientific papers completely, substituting the word “responsible” with “a Catalyst”, doing so would break web links already in place, and that would appear to some that the article had been removed, when that would not be the case.
Comments are normally closed automatically after 60 days, but I’m opening them up again for a short period since there has been a change to the article.
– Anthony
The Antarctic Ozone Hole is said to be caused only by Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s). According to this new study, perhaps not. (h/t to John F. Hultquist)
Here is a new paper of interest just published in Physical Review Letters.
Correlation between Cosmic Rays and Ozone Depletion
Q.-B. Lu
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada
Abstract:
This Letter reports reliable satellite data in the period of 1980–2007 covering two full 11-yr cosmic ray (CR) cycles, clearly showing the correlation between CRs and ozone depletion, especially the polar ozone loss (hole) over Antarctica. The results provide strong evidence of the physical mechanism that the CR driven electron-induced reaction of halogenated molecules plays the dominant role in causing the ozone hole. Moreover, this mechanism predicts one of the severest ozone losses in 2008–2009 and probably another large hole around 2019–2020, according to the 11-yr CR cycle.
Excerpts from the paper:
There is interest in studying the effects of galactic cosmic rays (CRs) on Earth’s climate and environment, particularly on global cloud cover in low atmosphere (3 km) and ozone depletion in the stratosphere. The former has led to a different scenario for global warming, while the latter has provided an unrecognized mechanism for the formation of the O3 hole. The discovery of the CR-cloud correlation by Svensmark and Friis-Christensen has motivated the experiments to investigate the physical mechanism for the correlation. In contrast, the CR-driven electron reaction mechanism for O3 depletion was first unexpectedly revealed from laboratory measurements by Lu and Madey. Then the evidence of the correlation between CRs, chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) dissociation, and O3 loss was found from satellite data by Lu and Sanche: the O3 hole is exactly located in the polar stratosphere and at the altitude of 18 km where the CR ionization shows a maximum.
CRs are the only electron source in the stratosphere, while halogen(Cl, Br)-containing molecules are long known to have extremely large cross sections of dissociative attachments of low-energy electrons. The latter reaction will be greatly enhanced when halogenated molecules are adsorbed or buried at the surfaces of polar molecular ice, relevant to polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) ice in the winter polar stratosphere, as firstly discovered by Lu and Madey and subsequently confirmed by others in experiments and theoretical calculations.
Read the complete paper here (PDF)
What I love is that my wife’s rescue inhaler for her asthma was recently legally switched from a CFC based propellant to an HFA one. These new HFA inhalers have caused a severe problem for a significant part of the population, and may well be responsible for deah. I know my wifes first response to the HFA “rescue” inhaler was a severe worsenin of her symptoms. Just great that the device that is supposed to help open airways can infat help to restrit them more.
https://www.savecfcinhalers.org/
The new CFC free rescue inhalers don’t work very well.
(useless piece of crap to be accurate)
As far as the ozone hole…
Giant invisible penguins would sneak into your kitchen at night and suck the freon out of your refrigerator. Then they would fly to the antartic and way up into the stratoshere where they would burp it out while telling jokes that invisible penguins find funny.
Except for the invisible part, this theory is at least as good an explanation and every bit as scientific, as the CFC’s causing ozone depletion theory was. But not fitting the data worth a darn is what environmental scare stories are great at.
And just in case anyone is missing a bit of irony, the replacement for CFC’s were HFC’s, very powerful greenhouse gases that leak very easily and which are now to be officially phased out (in Europe at least) to be replaced by propane (greenfreeze) or CO2. An object lesson in where the precautionary principle can take you if you aren’t careful.
quick followup to my post, I guess Sen Grassley from Iowa is heading up an investigation into HFA inhalers
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/03/asthma_hfa04.html
Howarth (13:23:00) :
Last year my asthma rescue inhaler went from being a “generic” brand to a premium brand. Why? My doctor told me that one of the manufacturers had developed a non-CFC version and had talked the EPA into banning the CFC laden versions, thereby regaining the patent rights to be the sole producer.
Now really, even if all asthma sufferers had to spray constantly, how much CFC would that add to the atmosphere? There’s always a buck to be made behind everything.
“What is with RealClimate? Dissent is not allowed to post?””
Correct, it is a fundamentalist warmist site. Heresy is not tolerated.
Barrie Sellers (12:15:46) :Ozone is produced by sunlightin the stratosphere: In the Antarctic winter there is no sunlight so Ozone is no longer created;[…]That’s it! No need for CFCs no need for cosmic rays. If this is too simple tell me what I’m missing.
I’ve been watching the ozone maps here:
http://exp-studies.tor.ec.gc.ca/e/ozone/Curr_allmap_g.htm
And it is quite clear that it isn’t just sunshine. For example, right now the N. Pole has about twice as much ozone as the souther hemisphere (and it’s been that way over much of the winter). The north gets less sun and has more ozone? Oh, and the north has more of the CFC’s that are supposed to be destroyers of ozone too.
This has led me to conclude that there is probably some kind of charged particle process involved. I don’t know if it is FTE’s, Birkeland currents, GCRs or what; but a simple sunshine model does not account for the distribution of ozone on the map. FTE’s refers to the ‘flux tubes’ that have recently been found to deliver charged particles to the planet and are a likely candidate. See:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/30oct_ftes.htm
One question I know that the solar system is tilted some 60 to 90 degrees (think of it as being on its side) to the center of the galaxy. If it turns out that the south pole is primarily pointed tward the galactic center it would stand to reason that there would be more GCR’s hitting that hemisphere. note I do not know if this is true, just throwing out speculation, and figure’d there were some who post here who might be able to confirm or deny this.
George answered my question as follows:
“….as to ozone and Cosmic Rays; Magnetic fields etc. I believe (and I am not alone) that the magnetic fields in the vicinity of the solar system, either of earth or sun origin or other, tend to affect the path’s of cosmic ray primaries and other charged particles including those from the sun. The lower energy particles entering earth vicinity can lock onto the earth magnetic field; specifically they spiral around the magnetic field lines, and travel in the general direction of one of the earth magnetic poles. Which pole just depends on the initial trajectory of the pcharged particle.
So if near earth magnetic fields are strong, CRs are steered away from the middle of the earth (equatorial regions) and tend to selectively clobber the upper atmosphere in the general vicinity of the magnetic poles which tend to be cold polar regions.
These charged particles striking upper atmopshere gases, create showers of secondary charged particles, and these tracks can become nucleation sites for water droplets to form out of water vapor. Water tends to condense on any surface or strange thing in the atmosphere; including those new bacteria that those Indian Scientists just discovered.
Now most of the water vapor in the atmosphere is in the more tropical warmer equatorial regions; so cosmic ray showers in the tropics can encourage cloud formations. But if CRs are steered away from the equatorial moist regions to the colder drier polar regions; well there isn’t a lot of water vapor to form much in the way of clouds.
So generally you can say that with strong near earth magnetic fields we get less cloud formation on earth so the albedo gets a little lower, and the ground level insolation gets a bit higher, because of fewer absorbing clouds. Note that even if the TSI never changed one iota during a solar sunspot cycle; the magnetic field changes that accompany the sunspot cycles would alter the Cosmic ray patterns, and so have a significant effect on earth warming and climate; so it isn’t the TSI it’s the water and the CRs that react to the sunspot cycles.
Something along those lines is the thesis put forward by Hendrik Svensmark et al; and I have to say I find the basic process to be quite compelling.
Anything that promotes cloud formation; such as the ash and aerosols from angry Alaskan Volcanoes, will tend to cool the earth because of lower ground level insolation.
Now what about that stratospheric ozone (or wherever that stuff is).
Well ozone has a stron absorption band in the 9-10 micron infra-red region; and that happens to be right at the peak of the earth surface mean temp thermal IR radiation (10.1 microns at 288 K.)
So the protective ozone layer is also an upper atmosphere warming GHG because of that 9-10 micron absorption band.
In the polar regions where ozone holes tend to occur at night (winter) the surface temperatures are much colder so the emitted IR radiation tends to be shifted to a longer wavelength as far as 15 microns in the coldest places; so that has the effect of reducing the effect of ozone absorption at the poles anyway, because the 10 micron band is now on the short side of the IR spectrum (Wiens Displacement Law) and only 25% of a Black body spectrum radiation is below the peak wavelength. Now the earth emissions are not truly BB anyway; but they are bounded by the BB spectrum,so its a good starting assumption.
So in the polar regions we have very little earth emitted IR anyway, as little as 12 times less than in the hottest tropical deserts; so there ain’t a lot of cooling going on in the polar regions, and what littel emitted IR there is is less affected by ozone or ozone holes than it would be over a hot tropical desert; which is where the most effective cooling is going on in the heat of the noonday sun.
Sounds a little weird; but I don’t make the rules. Way back when, somebody else noticed that hot things cool fast so we always make our car radiators nice and hot so they cool our engines effectively.
Covering your car radiator with ice is a losing proposition and only works for as long as the ice lasts.
So ozone does affect climate; but I think it is more of an upper atmosphere heating, than any cooling; but the Cosmetic Rays are good for us, and form lots of clouds to stop the planet from overheating.
So long as we have the oceans, we couldn’t change the temperature of this planet much; either up or down; even if we wanted to. the oceanic evaporation/cloud/precipitation cycle simply won’t let that happen.
Besides; what temperature would you set the knob to, if you had control of the thermostat ?
George”
Dear George,
Supper and wife were waiting, so I couldn’t right then applaud your excellent answer to my question, and now I see that Chris has done so, and now I can join him. However, I copied it and pasted it above in its entirety so others who may have missed can read it as Chris suggests below. Thanks again, George.
Bob
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
savethesharks (20:30:06) :
George E. Smith wrote: So ozone does affect climate; but I think it is more of an upper atmosphere heating, than any cooling; but the Cosmetic Rays are good for us, and form lots of clouds to stop the planet from overheating.
So long as we have the oceans, we couldn’t change the temperature of this planet much; either up or down; even if we wanted to. the oceanic evaporation/cloud/precipitation cycle simply won’t let that happen.
Besides; what temperature would you set the knob to, if you had control of the thermostat ?
George
Fascinating description of the topic at hand. I had to save that post (the most of it not quoted here) as that is one of most lucid descriptions I have heard yet!
****** brilliant, enlightened narrative. Go back and read folks if you have not.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
JamesG (06:44:37) : And just in case anyone is missing a bit of irony, the replacement for CFC’s were HFC’s, very powerful greenhouse gases that leak very easily and which are now to be officially phased out (in Europe at least) to be replaced by propane (greenfreeze) or CO2.
Oh, and don’t forget that the HFC replacement, R-134a, has shown a statistical correlation with increases in testicular cancer. Just what you want in an improved ‘safer’ product, cancer.
Oddly enough, back when the whole R-12 is evil mantra began, I not only bought a couple of automotive garage sized tanks (that have lasted until now, though in truth I traded one to my mechanic who has given me ‘drawing rights’ if needed, while he uses the rest on ‘classic’ cars) but also developed a blend of isobutane / propane that worked fine as a ‘drop in replacement’. Got the isobutane from camp stove fuel cans with a vampire tap, turned a propane torch head into a propane valve body (filed the inside hole larger so liquid could be moved) and blended it up in empty propane torch bottles. Ran a Honda on it for a few years and a Mercedes for 1 or 2. Then decided I might as well use up my R-12 stash… To fill the bottle, it is put in an ice bath and the source is left at room temp. You can suck the old refrigerant out of dead cars the same way 😉
Yup, never know where well intentioned screwy mandates will lead…
Oh, and R-22 was, IIRC, developed at the start of the Freon era as an exact drop in replacement for the older refrigerant, since it was believed to be safer, not being flammable like the old stuff… propane. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
There is a commercial blend with mostly non-flammables in it, GHG-12, that would be safer for the non-DIY crowd. IIRC the inventor started with propane / butane, then substituted R-22 for the propane, R-142b for most of the isobutane and adjusted the mix for the slight differences. GHG-12 was named for the inventor (in a more innocent time), not greenhouse gases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-406A
http://www.autofrost.com/peoples/ghg/ghg.html
And finally: Is propane a GHG? I can see it now… in 10 years after shifting to propane and CO2, “they” decide you can’t have those greenhouse gasses leaking out and change the mandate… again…
(And for the inevitable worry warts: The pint or two of flammable liquid is very small compared to the 15 gallons of flammable fuel on board the vehicle already. Nobody smokes in my cars. The odorant is still in the mix, so any leak will be just like having a propane torch in your tool box leak – detected by nose at low concentrations. Almost all leaks happen at the compressor seals anyway, under the hood in a 25 mph wind. My car does not live in an enclosed space. Eventually mechanics figured out that they needed to flush all the mineral oil then put in the ester oil so an R-134a conversion would not eat the compressor. Since they learned this, I’ve been converting to R-134a as vehicles needed work – thus this home brew mix fading from my present use into just a fond memory…)
All to prevent the ozone hole that is most likely unrelated to Freon and strongly related to where charged particles hit the planet…
Roger Knights (13:35:17) : Second: I’ve suspected that Hansen (and others) modeled their CO2=warming thesis on the template of the Freon=ozone hole template.
I believe you are correct. They hold it up as a ‘triumph’… and state that we need to emulate that ‘success’.
Third, if it turns out, a few years down the road, that the Freon connection is thoroughly debunked, this can be used by our side as a stick with which to belabor the alarmists.
IMHO, you can start now. Just print out the present ozone map and ask this question:
If it’s CFCs, why is the North Pole 2 x the ozone and WAY above ‘normal’ for the global average while the South Pole is low? Do CFC’s not go there? Are GCRs asymmetric by 50%?
As an added item, you can print out several days charts and ask:
The percentage shifts dramatically (20% easy, sometimes more) day to day AND spot to spot in the same hemisphere. Do the CFCs shift that much? If it takes 50 years to get that high in the air, how does the concentration change by 20% in as many hours? How is it that CO2 is a ‘well mixed gas’ but CFCs are not?
IMHO, the correct answer is that GCRs do break down ozone but by an unclear route (and the CFC thesis is just that, a theory not yet proven) while some other particle event is creating ozone (which is why the map has such strong variations in it as we get hit with FTEs et. al. and the FTEs have a polar preference based on charge interacting with mag fields, thus the South pole ‘hole’).
The notion that CFCs after 50 years of migrating to the upper air would not be well mixed or would have such rapidly changing patterns of activity is just wrong.
Some have touched this already. My big problem with CFC/Ozone hole is how the stuff got there. We made lots of CFCs in the NH, little in the SH. The jet streams don’t allow much mixing of NH and SH air. So how did all those nasty CFC get to the Antarctic? Then there is Mt. Erebus, a nice active volcano in Antarctica, spewing lots of Ozone eating chemicals all the time. But it doesn’t count.
Saving the planet seems to take priority over rational science. And if refrigerators became more expensive and less efficient, or space shuttles crashed, it was for the good of the planet.
The current planet savers don’t seem to care if the economy dies in the process, along with a bunch of the folks who live on the planet. Some of the more extreme types may see that as a benefit. Sadly, I may live long enough to see it happen.
OT, now that Spring has arrived, Colorado went from 60’s and 70’s to 12 above with a foot of snow. Some things never change.
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm05/fm05-sessions/fm05_SH22A.html
Here are a few excerpts from (actual) data collected during a ground level SOLAR event in 2005:
“Solar protons with very high energies are able to cause ionization in the polar atmosphere down to the middle~– lower stratosphere…. ”
“Furthermore we have used the nighttime observations of mesospheric and stratospheric ozone made by the GOMOS instrument on board the Envisat satellite to monitor the ozone depletion in the middle atmosphere due to the January SPEs.”
Posters note: But no mention of the actual ozone drops at this level.
“The intense solar eruptive events in January 2005 caused atmospheric changes in the polar regions due to solar energetic particles associated with these events. Solar particles (primarily protons) produced ionizations, excitations, dissociations, and dissociative ionizations of the mesospheric background constituents, which led to the production of HOx (H, OH, and HO2) through a series of ion-molecule reactions. These odd hydrogen constituents led to depletions of ozone through catalytic reactions. The Aura MLS instrument observed substantial mesospheric increases in OH from January 17-22, 2005, along with associated decreases ozone (up to 50% between 65 and 75 km).”
Posters note: the reductions of stratospheric ozone levels are not stated, even though the satellites were monitoring it. Curious. The catalytic reactions were due to Hydroxyl radicals? Maybe. Read the paragraph on the atmospheric electrical fields dropping to near zero. Protons + electrons =??? Note that the highest level of flaring normally occurs on the downslope of the solar cycle (correct,Leif?), when GCR’s are increasing in intensity. Sounds like a double whammy. 50% in five days – HMMM.
Another case where the science is settled! 😉
John S (16:04:45) : In any case, the cost of stopping the release of CFCs was relatively low. Certainly hassle to refrigeration engineers and some others, but not significant within the grand scheme of the global economy.
It has cost me, personally, well north of $2000 in A/C conversions (including one blown compressor on the Honda before the Honda mechanic figured out they needed to purge the old mineral oil AND FLUSH before putting in the ester oil and R-134a) along with about 100 hours of my life (at a minimum). Not exactly what I’d call “relatively low” cost. (I’m pretty sure it’s closer to $4000, but I can’t say for certain part of it would not have been needed anyway).
Last loss was about 6 months ago trying to get 1 lb of R-12 for the old BMW. That was about 20 hours and $50 wasted trying an R-134a adapter kit before I finally went to my Mercedes mechanic who still had some… (The R-134a adapter fitting will NOT fit due to the hood being too near the spigot… so I’ll be into it at least another couple of hundred for a custom re-piping job at some future date…) Maybe I need to refurbish my ersatz mix kit…
While I’m sure it’s easy to be cavalier with other peoples money, I’d rather folks didn’t do it with mine…
Oh, and the R-134a in an R-12 system is NOT as effective at cooling, so we really ought to add something for the times the Benz (who’s AC was never stellar in Phoenix…) has left me a bit hotter than I would have been…
BTW, replacing the cars is not an option (even ignoring cost). These are daily drivers, but also very classic. They will be maintained and driven for as long as I last. The Diesels have been known to go over 1,000,000 miles (that is not a typo One Million – I had one with 450,000 on it at one time, but my present one has only 150,000 though the wagon is at about 300,000 and still doing fine.) It is not possible to get a car like that any more. The push to lighter weight for fuel economy has led to aluminum engine Diesels and the heads give out at a couple of hundred thousand miles.
My kid was T-boned by a very lifted F250 or F350 in a parking lot and drove home to tell me about it in one of my Mercedes (which is getting a new drivers door as I type.) Yes, built like a tank and well worth it. The Pickup driver said he didn’t see the car at all because he was lifted so high, never touched the brakes. So the corner of his bumper put all the energy into the middle of the drivers door. The only part damaged was the outside of the door and reinforcing bars and with no intrusion into the cabin. (Didn’t even break the window). I don’t want to think what would have happened in the Honda but I’m pretty sure it would have been an arm injury at the least and maybe a shoulder / back involvement with possible broken glass issues. So no, I’m not interested in a new ultralight econobox; I’ll deal with the R-12. But it is NOT cheap.
LAShaffer (09:49:21)
“Solar protons with very high energies are able to cause ionization in the polar atmosphere down to the middle~– lower stratosphere…. ”
This is well established here are a couple of papers from Paul Crutzen who one the Nobel Prize for Ozone research.
“The production of nitric oxide (NO) in the stratosphere during each of the solar proton events of November 1960, September 1966, and August 1972 is calculated to have been comparable to or larger than the total average annual production of NO by the action of galactic cosmic rays. It is therefore very important to consider the effect of solar proton events on the temporal and spatial distribution of ozone in the stratosphere. A study of ozone distribution after such events may be particularly important for validating photochemical-diffusion models.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/189/4201/457
Large-scale reductions in the ozone content of the middle and upper stratosphere over the polar cap regions were associated with the major solar proton event of 4 August 1972. This reduction, which was determined from measurements with the backscattered ultraviolet experiment on the Nimbus 4 satellite, is interpreted as being due to the catalytic destruction of ozone by odd-nitrogen compounds (NOx) produced by the event.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/197/4306/886
High levels of ionising radiation in the Earth’s stratosphere will lead to increased concentrations of nitrogen oxides and decreased concentrations of ozone. Changes in the surface environment will include an increased level of biologically harmful UV radiation, caused by the ozone depletion, and a decreased level of visible solar radiation, due to the presence of major enhancements in the stratospheric concentration of nitrogen dioxide. These changes are studied quantitatively, using the passage of the Solar System through a supernova remnant shell as an example. Some of the potential environmental changes are a substantial global cooling, abnormally dry conditions, a reduction in global photosynthesis and a large increase in the flux of atmospheric fixed nitrogen to the surface of the Earth. Such events might have been the cause of mass extinctions in the distant past.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v275/n5680/abs/275489a0.html
maksimovich (10:47:10) :
Thanks for posting the links, I was already aware of most of this. Maybe the scientists involved weren’t. The point was that they also seemed to be linking strange hydrogen to ozone depletion, produced by the same type of electromagnetic disturbances in the atmosphere.
BTW, don’t know if anybody mentioned this, but the primary reason for switching to HFC’s was because adding the hydrogen to the molecules made them more reactive, so they wouldn’t stay in the atmosphere as long. I don’t think (I could be wrong) they ever claimed it wouldn’t reduce O3 levels. I wonder how long and hard they studied exactly what it would react WITH and what the PRODUCT of the reactions would be? Or was the problem so “catastrophic” that HFC’s had to be rushed into service immediately? (sarcasm)
OK, maybe I just had the most brilliant primary school teacher. (In fact I think that’s true – Miss Walker – an amazing woman! I’ll never forget her. But will I ever forgive her for putting me off dancing for life?)
Shake.
Anyway, my point is that ozone, and ozone layer holes, were well known about long before any “human” effect was suspected. (Even before people generally had fridges for Christ’s sake! let alone were found guilty of spewing CFCs into the air!)
Is there really nobody out there who remembers anything like this?
Has anyone got an “old” Encyclopedia they could look this stuff up in? I don’t, unfortunately, and it’s clearly pre-internet information. (Don’t anybody suggest Wikipedia!!!)
I really need to know if I’m mad. I really can’t think why ozone should be the subject of “false memory syndrome”.
All you old guys (and gals) out there. Help!!!
S
“”” jorgekafkazar (18:28:52) :
“Way back when, somebody else noticed that hot things cool fast so we always make our car radiators nice and hot so they cool our engines effectively.“– George E. Smith
I believe it’s more so that the operating temperature of the engine will be higher, giving higher efficiency…as long as nothing actually melts. “””
Well not eggsackly. There’s no thermodynamic requirement that your engine get hot at all. Only the working fluid (air) is required to get hot to obtain a high Carnot cycle efficiency: (Tsource-Tsink)/Tsource
And the efficiency grows faster if you concentrate on lowering the exhaust (sink) temperature, than if you try raising the source temperature. (which produces more an more materials problems; and pollution problems.
The production of NOx in your engine by “burning” the air itself, is a result of the high temperatures and pressures obtained in a high compression IC engine. There’s no nitrogen in modern gasolines; so the NOX comes from burning the air. In principle you could ruan your car on air without gasoline, and simply use a laser blast to heat the working fluid (air) when required. But even with no gasoline in your car, that engine would still manufacture NOx; and that is why regular US gasoline is 87 Octane, and it isn’t legal to sell an automobile in the USA, that won’t run properly on that 87 Octane fuel. The idea is to restrict engine compression ratios so you don’t manufacture NOX. A supercharged engine is less thermally efficient than a high compression engine; but it doesn’t make as much NOx because of the lower engine compression ratio.
But because of the lower thermal efficiencies, low compression or supercharged engines put out greater amounts of waste heat, and th3e stylists won’t allow the use of larger radiator frontal area..
So to increase the cooling efficiency of the radiator, you have to raise the temperature of the water in the radiator so it loses heat faster by both conduction/convection from the air flow, but also from T^4 radiation.
And of course to get that higher water temperature, you have to pressurize the radiator so the water boils at a higher temperature.
The big gains in auto engine performance have come from better combustion chemistry, as a result of electronic ignition and carburetion/fuel injection; and not from higher Carnot efficiency.
85% of all on the road auto problems are cooling system related; and the cause of that can be placed at the feet of pressurized high temperature radiators.
Speaking of radiators; in a normal car radiator, you have air sometimes fan assisted entering the front of the radiator, and picking up heat from the hot internal fluid. So that air expands as it exits the radiator core because of the energy pick up from the heat exchanger (radiator).
A direct result of this is your car’s radiator produces an actual forward thrust from the expanding radiator exiting air.
This effect can be seen in spades on the belly of every P-51 Mustang plane, where the aerodynamic drag of that weird radiator placement, is more than compensated for by the thrust of this low tech “jet” engine.
It’s called the “Meredith Radiator”, and it was invented by a British chap by the name of Meredith, back in the early 1930s. The engineers at North American who designed the P-51 (in record time), picked up on the Meredith Radiator, and today claim it as their own.
Nonsense, hogwash, balderdash ! Under the Starboard wing of every single one of the 33,000 plus Supermarine Spitfire fighters of the RAF sits a Meredith Radiator; and the concept was incorporated into the first prototype K5054. It was a significant contribution to the efficient aerodynamic performance of the Spitfire. So now you know; the P-51 was a johnny come lately to the discovery of the Meredith Radiator.
George
I’ve scanned the responses to current date/time. I see no one who has noted that no one has ever seen the Antarctic w/o an O3 hole. It was there when we first started looking. It’s there now.
Why did our science community ever entertain the hypothesis the we did it? Any HVAC technician knows that CFCs pour out of leaks onto the ground. Brownian movement could never explain the proposed elevation of these heavy molecules to the upper atmosphere, and thence (seemingly selectively) from NH to SH with congregation at 0 to 20 degrees South. The physics and mechanics of such movement never seemed to be questioned. The hypothesis existed, and thus was accepted. Forget evidence, proof, and honest scientific skepticism.
I’ve suspected a Green/Corporate conspiracy since the first news reports. DuPont made millions based on the unsubstantiated scare stories.
Ozone is NOT being depleted, it’s being MADE from the gases in our atmosphere meeting up with the waves or activity produced by our sun. Gas molecules (over 90% are water) are split or sheared when meeting up with incoming solar particles/galactic dust in the ionosphere and in turn causing o3(ozone) to be created and other off gases/carbon/minerals from the collision.
Gases like CO2, chlorine( a depleter of O3) are being formed and bits of carbon14, salts, minerals dropping to the earth creating(seeding) cloud formation. Precipitation is formed from the nuclei or salt in the atmosphere. You don’t get rain or any kind of precipitation with out nuclei/salt.
Salty rain water or salty snow melt makes it’s way down our rivers into our oceans where the life there turns CO2 into carbonates for shell formation and bone structure and the HO2 vapor is returned in a never ending cycle.
So more carbon 14 is produced when the suns more active(hot) and less when the suns inactivate(cold), this is natural, and ozone is the same.
Meaning, more ozone seen in the summer(hot), and less in the winter(cold).
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/10/07/ozone-hole-bigger-again/
The ozone hole is a non event and is regulated by the sun, the sun fluctuates energy and we get more or less depending on it’s cycles.
Be it daily, seasonal, orbital or galactic, it’s cyclical influences on us inhabitance of earth by our sun is undeniable.
The sun giveth and then take away, so just relax and enjoy the ride! 😉
JimInIndy
The hole was first observed in the late 70s. It was unexpected, so of course you won’t find earlier papers noting its absence. After it was first seen it grew rapidly – this pic shows the contrast between the small hole in 1981 and the much larger one in 1991.
<a href=”http://www.theozonehole.com/ozoneholehistory.htm”?This site describes the history, and if you scroll down you’ll see a series of annual pics since 1981, chronicling the growth and levelling off.
EM Smith (10:45:30), you make my point exactly. Your cost of CFC replacement, even at $2,000, is very much less than your share of $45 trillion (the IEA estimate for the replacement of carbon based energy sources), though you do seem to have had a lot of trouble with your refrigerants.
I speak as an engineer who was responsible at the time for the maintenance of some environmental chambers. When the fridge system needed topping up, the service engineer used instead a non-CFC drop-in replacement. The only mod was to indelibly mark a warning not use naked flames on the system! There was no significant increase in cost or noticeable degradation of performance.
We also had to replace CFC cleaning solutions in an electronics manufacturing plant, variously replacing these with iso-propyl alcohol, terpenes and de-ionised water. These were generally cheaper, safer and worked better.
My children’s asthma inhalers seem to work as well as the previous type, better in fact because of other advances in design. I still have a Halon fire extinguisher, but its replacement will have to be dry powder, AFFF or CO2.
I do however miss the old formulation of Tipp-Ex.
While I appreciate that you’d rather folks weren’t cavalier with your money, similarly no one should be cavalier with other folks’ health and protection from solar radiation, which based on the scientific understanding at the time is what was believed to be at stake.
So, yes, certainly some hassle and cost, but relatively low compared to the cost of changing away from a carbon-based economy, which will be astronomical.
I seem to remember expressions of glee some years back–“we have severely trimmed back on CFC production and usage, and look at how the ozone hole is shrinking”! Now Professor Lu predicts ‘one of the biggest ozone holes ever’. If this comes to be with there being no parallel CFC usage upsurge, this should rather well nail the CFC-ozone depletion coffin.
Who in a position of say-so would motivate a return to legality of the excellent refrigerants of the recent past? Or reverse the death penalty on R-22? Certainly not the people who have been and still are coining the boodle!
Geoff Alder
To Moderator: I meant for you to delete all of the following from the post timed Phil. (09:30:41). Sorry I wasn’t clear.
Reply: all of those recent posts have been deleted, please start over.
Here’s a good ozone link (apologies if it’s a repeat)
http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Ingles/Crista.html
Some of the links from that page are interesting, too.