From the University of Waterloo press release.
WATERLOO, Ont. (Monday, Dec. 21, 2009) – Cosmic rays and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), both already implicated in depleting the Earth’s ozone layer, are also responsible for changes in the global climate, a University of Waterloo scientist reports in a new peer-reviewed paper.
In his paper, Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, shows how CFCs – compounds once widely used as refrigerants – and cosmic rays – energy particles originating in outer space – are mostly to blame for climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. His paper, derived from observations of satellite, ground-based and balloon measurements as well as an innovative use of an established mechanism, was published online in the prestigious journal Physics Reports.
“My findings do not agree with the climate models that conventionally thought that greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, are the major culprits for the global warming seen in the late 20th century,” Lu said. “Instead, the observed data show that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays most likely caused both the Antarctic ozone hole and global warming. These findings are totally unexpected and striking, as I was focused on studying the mechanism for the formation of the ozone hole, rather than global warming.”
His conclusions are based on observations that from 1950 up to now, the climate in the Arctic and Antarctic atmospheres has been completely controlled by CFCs and cosmic rays, with no CO2 impact.
“Most remarkably, the total amount of CFCs, ozone-depleting molecules that are well-known greenhouse gases, has decreased around 2000,” Lu said. “Correspondingly, the global surface temperature has also dropped. In striking contrast, the CO2 level has kept rising since 1850 and now is at its largest growth rate.”
In his research, Lu discovers that while there was global warming from 1950 to 2000, there has been global cooling since 2002. The cooling trend will continue for the next 50 years, according to his new research observations.
As well, there is no solid evidence that the global warming from 1950 to 2000 was due to CO2. Instead, Lu notes, it was probably due to CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays. And from 1850 to 1950, the recorded CO2 level increased significantly because of the industrial revolution, while the global temperature kept nearly constant or only rose by about 0.1 C.
In previously published work, Lu demonstrated that an observed cyclic hole in the ozone layer provided proof of a new ozone depletion theory involving cosmic rays, which was developed by Lu and his former co-workers at Rutgers University and the Université de Sherbrooke. In the past, it was generally accepted for more than two decades that the Earth’s ozone layer is depleted due to the sun’s ultraviolet light-induced destruction of CFCs in the atmosphere.
The depletion theory says cosmic rays, rather than the sun’s UV light, play the dominant role in breaking down ozone-depleting molecules and then ozone. In his study, published in Physical Review Letters, Lu analyzed reliable cosmic ray and ozone data in the period of 1980-2007, which cover two full 11-year solar cycles.
In his latest paper, Lu further proves the cosmic-ray-driven ozone depletion theory by showing a large number of data from laboratory and satellite observations. One reviewer wrote: “These are very strong facts and it appears that they have largely been ignored in the past when modelling the Antarctic ozone loss.”
New observations of the effects of CFCs and cosmic rays on ozone loss and global warming/cooling could be important to the Earth and humans in the 21st century. “It certainly deserves close attention,” Lu wrote in his paper, entitled Cosmic-Ray-Driven Electron-Induced Reactions of Halogenated Molecules Adsorbed on Ice Surfaces: Implications for Atmospheric Ozone Depletion and Global Climate Change.
The paper, published Dec. 3 in Physics Reports, is available online at: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physrep.2009.12.002.
h/t to Russ Steele
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It’s a real shame that posts aren’t ‘nested’ here! There is no way that I’ll read 167 posts to discover if any query was already answered for a post near the top of the list, then go over it all again for a later query. Thus any serious debate here is difficult (to say the least). So I guess I’ll only post to Anthony here!
I’m an engineer (universal millwright) and statistical/quantum disciplines look like magical belief to me, or perhaps more like ‘what is the possible outcome if we are blind to some of the processes involved’. I’ve only taken interest in climate science since the last couple of years, but I am beginning to form an opinion of the whole. Onwards to my opinion and assumption of your post subject.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physrep.2009.12.002
Phuleeze, keep this within the bounds of credibility. If it’s behind a ‘money wall’ then it isn’t ‘open’ so that it can be ‘openly’ discussed.
My understanding is that ultraviolet (UV) radiation and more ‘energetic’ solar radiation generate ozone in the ozone layer by way of degenerating O2 to O. This gives an O2 molecule the opportunity to add an extra oxygen atom to its makeup and form O3. This also means that there is a propensity of oxygen atoms at this altitude.
The lack of an attractror (ozone) at a latitude and altitude will permit the ocean absorbption of UV which alters the ocean/atmospheric balance. Thus, an ozone barrier determines the absorption rate of deep ocean energy.
Best regards, suricat.
Wow,
This paper to my non-physicist’s eye looks like a reasonable piece of work. However it doesn’t conclude what the summary of this article claims it does. I wonder where the puported quotes from the author in the summary come from as they’re not very consistent with the content of the article.
hunter (19:06:13)
Given the lag of CO2 behind temperature in 800,000 years of ice-core and sediment records, how can you think that it COULD be CO2?
hunter (19:06:13) :
“It’s the cosmic rays! It’s the sun! It’s the oceans! It’s just natural cycles! It’s CFCs! It’s anything – anything but CO2! It doesn’t matter how much it contradicts any of the other shoddy studies you’ve hyped, does it?”
Your saying “it” contradicts other studies doesn’t make it so. Nor have I seen Anthony or anyone on this site claim that only one of these “its” is totally responsible for climate change. The climate is an ever changing multi dimensional collection of processes and interactions affected by many causal agents, themselves dynamic.
I doubt you have a clue as to how any of it works. On the off chance you do, you should realize that what Lu is saying could potentially lead to a very dramatic increase in our understanding of the climate.
Read up a little on ozone, causes of pressure variability and atmospheric circulation patterns, and the consider this
“Our simple model cannot tell us exactly what these interactions are, but it does indicate that there may be interesting climate-changing phenomena out there that we’re only beginning to investigate.”
http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=19947
Another recent study concerns ozone,
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/rind_04/
“These two phenomena would appear to be completely unrelated but a recent study suggests otherwise.”
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2009/Rind_etal_3.html
“The S.H. ozone hole deepened into the mid-1990s, while the Northern Annular Mode (NAM) became more positive. Both effects have since stabilized. We investigate a possible connection with modeling experiments of a S. H. spring ozone hole, and also year-round ozone loss in both polar regions. The S.H. ozone hole results in a more positive NAM-like phase extending down to the surface. Reduced vertical stability increases S.H. tropospheric wave energy flux into the stratosphere which drives a residual circulation with relative subsidence over the Southern pole and upwelling and reduced planetary wave energy flux at Northern high latitudes. The results suggest that similar trends in the Southern Ozone hole and the NAM over the last 20 years may be more than just a coincidence, although other factors undoubtedly influence the Northern high latitude circulation.”
Allan M (12:14:22) :
I recall, but can’t find it quickly, a paper published some months ago by JPL showing that the reaction between chlorine and ozone under stratospheric conditions is an order of magnitude slower than was previously assumed, and thus cannot account for more than a fraction of the ozone depletion.
I wonder what happened to that one?
Note: link was originally at a paid nature.com account. It was reprinted at this site with permission
http://www.junkscience.com/sep07/Chemists_poke_holes_in_ozone_theory.htm
“Chemists poke holes in ozone theory: Reaction data of crucial chloride compounds called into question.” –
“As the world marks 20 years since the introduction of the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer, Nature has learned of experimental data that threaten to shatter established theories of ozone chemistry. If the data are right, scientists will have to rethink their understanding of how ozone holes are formed and how that relates to climate change.
Long-lived chloride compounds from anthropogenic emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are the main cause of worrying seasonal ozone losses in both hemispheres. In 1985, researchers discovered a hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic, after atmospheric chloride levels built up. The Montreal Protocol, agreed in 1987 and ratified two years later, stopped the production and consumption of most ozone-destroying chemicals. But many will linger on in the atmosphere for decades to come. How and on what timescales they will break down depend on the molecules’ ultraviolet absorption spectrum (the wavelength of light a molecule can absorb), as the energy for the process comes from sunlight. Molecules break down and react at different speeds according to the wavelength available and the temperature, both of which are factored into the protocol.
So Markus Rex, an atmosphere scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute of Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, did a double-take when he saw new data for the break-down rate of a crucial molecule, dichlorine peroxide (Cl2O2). The rate of photolysis (light-activated splitting) of this molecule reported by chemists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California1, was extremely low in the wavelengths available in the stratosphere – 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.
The rapid photolysis of Cl2O2 is a key reaction in the chemical model of ozone destruction developed 20 years ago2 (see graphic).
If the rate is substantially lower than previously thought, then it would not be possible to create enough aggressive chlorine radicals to explain the observed ozone losses at high latitudes, says Rex. The extent of the discrepancy became apparent only when he incorporated the new photolysis rate into a chemical model of ozone depletion. The result was a shock: at least 60% of ozone destruction at the poles seems to be due to an unknown mechanism, Rex told a meeting of stratosphere researchers in Bremen, Germany, last week.
Other groups have yet to confirm the new photolysis rate, but the conundrum is already causing much debate and uncertainty in the ozone research community. “Our understanding of chloride chemistry has really been blown apart,” says John Crowley, an ozone researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz, Germany.
“Until recently everything looked like it fitted nicely,” agrees Neil Harris, an atmosphere scientist who heads the European Ozone Research Coordinating Unit at the University of Cambridge, UK. “Now suddenly it’s like a plank has been pulled out of a bridge.”
The measurements at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were overseen by Stanley Sander, a chemist who chairs a NASA panel for data evaluation. Every couple of years, the panel recommends chemical kinetics and photochemical data for use in atmosphere studies. Until the revised photolysis rate has been evaluated, which won’t be before the end of next year, “modellers must make up their minds about what to do,” says Sander. One of the problems with checking the data is that the absorption spectra of chloride compounds are technically challenging to determine. Sander’s group used a new technique to synthesize and purify Cl2O2. To avoid impurities and exclude secondary reactions, the team trapped the molecule at low temperatures, then slowly warmed it up.
“Reactions in experimental chambers are one thing – the free atmosphere is something else,” says Joe Farman, one of the scientists who first quantified the ozone hole over Antarctica3. “There’s no doubt that ozone disappears at up to 3% a day – whether or not we completely understand the chemistry.” But he adds that insufficient control of substances such as halon 1301, used as a flame suppressor, and HCFC22, a refrigerant, is a bigger threat to the success of the Montreal Protocol than are models that don’t match the observed losses.
Hot topic
Meanwhile, atmosphere researchers have started to think about how to reconcile observations of ozone depletion with the new chemical models. Several thermal reactions, or combinations of reactions, could fill the gap. Sander’s group has started to study possible candidates one by one – but so far without success.
Rex thinks that a chemical pathway involving a Cl2O2 isomer – a molecule with the same atoms but a different structure – might be at play. But even if the basic chemical model of ozone destruction is upheld, the temperature dependency of key reactions in the process could be very different – or even opposite – from thought. This could have dramatic consequences for the understanding of links between climate change and ozone loss, Rex says.
The new measurements raise “intriguing questions”, but don’t compromise the Montreal Protocol as such, says John Pyle, an atmosphere researcher at the University of Cambridge. “We’re starting to see the benefits of the protocol, but we need to keep the pressure on.” He says that he finds it “extremely hard to believe” that an unknown mechanism accounts for the bulk of observed ozone losses.
Nothing currently suggests that the role of CFCs must be called into question, Rex stresses. “Overwhelming evidence still suggests that anthropogenic emissions of CFCs and halons are the reason for the ozone loss. But we would be on much firmer ground if we could write down the correct chemical reactions.”
Quirin Schiermeier
1. Pope, F. D., Hansen, J. C., Bayes, K. D., Friedl, R. R. & Sander, S. P. J. Phys. Chem. A 111, 4322-4332 (2007).
2. Molina, L. T. & Molina, M. J. J. Phys. Chem. 91, 433-436 (1987).
3. Farman, J. C., Gardiner, B. G. & Shanklin, J. D. Nature 315, 207-210 (1985).
Copyright 2007, Nature
Dave F (16:18:07) :
I am not sure what your point is, could you elaborate?
Yes. If you think you have evidence that you can stand behind that says CFC’s, not CO2 are responsible for global warming, then that’s a major finding. You’ll be famous. You wouldn’t add it as a one sentence, non -specific afterthought to a paper about something totally different.
How many of the commentariat here thought enough of this puff piece to actually buy the paper?
“Nothing currently suggests that the role of CFCs must be called into question, Rex stresses. ‘Overwhelming evidence still suggests that anthropogenic emissions of CFCs and halons are the reason for the ozone loss. But we would be on much firmer ground if we could write down the correct chemical reactions.'”
The science is settled, nothing to see here, move along, it is all man’s fault. Gee, where did we hear this kind of statement recently? I still am not believing that it is the CFLs that are the cause of the ozone depletion. There are plenty of natural reasons noted in the comments as well as other places on the internet for Ozone depletion and going with the ‘its man’s fault’ hypothesis is nothing more than trying to ensure future funding in rent seeking research.
Nick Stokes (20:24:27
Yes. If you think you have evidence that you can stand behind that says CFC’s, not CO2 are responsible for global warming, then that’s a major finding. You’ll be famous. You wouldn’t add it as a one sentence,
Oh you mean like this last sentence (second paragraph) from Paul Crutzen where CFC’s seemingly outperform fossil fuels 100x, but then again he is ”famous’.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l652h1667qn45261/
Nick Stokes (20:24:27),
The burden is not on scientific skeptics to prove anything. The burden is on those flogging the CO2=CAGW hypothesis to provide solid, empirical evidence that CO2 causes runaway global warming.
So far, they have failed completely.
Maybe you will have better luck.
But, but, but… It’s peer-reviewed! That is all that matters, right? If it’s peer reviewed, it must be correct! That is what AGW proponents had been telling us for years. That is what you had been using as a hammer to stifle any dissent. How do you like them apples now Nick?
On a little bit more serious note, this paper, whether complete garbage or absolute truth, by it’s very existence is sign of the floodgates opening.
I am finally hopeful that we might be able to win this thing.
Nick Stokes (20:24:27) :
“Yes. If you think you have evidence that you can stand behind that says CFC’s, not CO2 are responsible for global warming, then that’s a major finding. You’ll be famous. You wouldn’t add it as a one sentence, non -specific afterthought to a paper about something totally different.”
It isn’t a fact that no one would “add it as a one sentence…”
And the paper is not about something totally different, it is also about global warming, as you yourself posted:
“Finally, new observation of the effects of CFCs and cosmic-ray driven ozone depletion on global climate change is also presented and discussed.”
You’re not even a good spin doctor, Nick.
“How many of the commentariat here thought enough of this puff piece to actually buy the paper?”
You appear to. Have you?
Nick Stokes (20:24:27) :
Yes. If you think you have evidence that you can stand behind that says CFC’s, not CO2 are responsible for global warming, then that’s a major finding. You’ll be famous. You wouldn’t add it as a one sentence, non -specific afterthought to a paper about something totally different.
How many of the commentariat here thought enough of this puff piece to actually buy the paper?
Well it appears you did not. Neither did I, but not out of lack of curiosity.
Why ‘commentariat’? It sounds like commandant. Are you one of those people with the fetish of referring to people you do not like as evil Nazis? Because, ironically, that is what the Nazis did and it drives me crazy to see that kind of irony, so I hope not. I had thought from talking to you previously that you were above that, but I digress.
You would not add it as an after-thought unless it was possible for future studies and you did not want to appear as though you were making the claim that you have found the answer to climate change. Of course, that claim has been made before by certain scientists convinced that their work is important enough to explain all climate change, and especially the warming we are seeing in the modern period.
With a revival of the ozone hole over the South Pole, I must again voice my periodic concern –
I lay awake at night, thinking about millions of penguins dying from skin cancer.
And another ugly scenario pops into mind –
Thousands of polar bears croaking after eating penguins with skin cancer.
Only the most callous fur seal could be heartened by such a prospect. I am cheered only by Leif’s assurances that the sun doesn’t affect weather and the fact that the hardware store here in Houston hasn’t stocked any snow shovels (yet).
Re: crosspatch (09:38:35) :
Better reread this part again.
“My findings do not agree with the climate models that conventionally thought that greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, are the major culprits for the global warming seen in the late 20th century,” Lu said. “Instead, the observed data show that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays most likely caused both the Antarctic ozone hole and global warming. These findings are totally unexpected and striking, as I was focused on studying the mechanism for the formation of the ozone hole, rather than global warming.”
The second sentence is simply talking generically about the ozone hole and global warming, and not global warming at a specific locale.
Can I ask for a ruling that Wiki should never be linked here except for comic relief?
Sorry if I missed it above, but can someone please help me find where I can get in on the ground floor of the cosmic ray cap and trade! HA!
Stephen
never thought the day would come that I would agree with George Carlin– and multiple times to boot !!!
there is no way that we can heat or cool the earth— we can make it stinky, but that’s all.
ultimately it must be the sun.
after all, it has been both much warmer or cooler many times in the past irrespective of man’ s presence, or any of his flotsam
geo @ur momisugly 9:59:10
“Btw, is there somewhere one can see a table of estimated man-made C02 emissions by year from 1850-2008”?
Yes geo, try the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre..
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
Mike McMillan (21:05:59) :
“I lay awake at night, thinking about millions of penguins dying from skin cancer.”
Have you tried to alleviate your suffering by finding out whether that is true?
Perhaps you could change to thinking about penguins being sucked out into space because of the ozone hole, and by counting them help to fall asleep. 8-|
hunter (19:06:13) :
I draw your attention to the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers in AR4-wg1
On page 4 you will find fig spm2, Radiative Forcing Componenets
Now look at the last column headed LOSU (level of scientific understanding)
Of the 9 forcings listed, GHG’s are listed as high losu (surprise surprise)
The other 7 are medium(1) medium low(2) and low (4)
In other words, the IPCC has been preaching “CO2 did it” purely
because they don’t know enough about the other forcings on our climate.
Therefore, YES, “It’s the cosmic rays! It’s the sun! It’s the oceans! It’s just natural cycles! It’s CFCs! It’s anything”.
What blogs like this one have been saying for years is that the science is NOT settled, that we just don’t know enough about the chaos of climate to be able to make century long dire predictions like the IPCC has done, and whenever a paper is released pointing to something other than CO2, it is highlighted to make this very point. Geddit?
Well, I’m tooo cold, so can you all go outside and use some hair spray or vent a few cars AC systems? We need a bit more warmth right now:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/twc-another-usa-blizzard-or-2-and-100-dead-in-eu-from-cold/
To the extent that this work puts into perspective the influence of CFC chemicals on the global climate, it provides some explanation of why the down-trend in solar fusion activity noted in recent decades had not been coupled with global cooling as expected.
So let’s see…. If we’re at a point in the 1,500-year solar Dansgaard-Oeschger super-cycle at which we should reasonably expect to be seeing a drop in global temperatures, but that drop was deterred in onset until 2000 because we’d been releasing CFC aerosols into the atmosphere, then we really do have a way to fend off an oncoming ice age, don’t we?
With the understanding that periods of global cooling – not warming, but cooling – are associated with lower crop yields, poverty, disease, suffering, and death, wouldn’t it be time now to whack together a bunch of factories to manufacture Freon-12 and start releasing that blessed substance into the atmosphere?
Let’s do it “for the children!”
An interesting hypothesis on the ozone/climate connection. More work needs to be done to try and falsify it, and it would be folly to think that this is THE cause of net global energy change, just as much it is stupid to think CO2 is THE cause.
Good evidence that climate has had rapid changes long before man even arrived on the scene. I’m coming to the conclusion that it is many interacting mechanisms in our climate system working together which cause the warm or cold modes which happen on a quasi-cyclical basis.
JonesII (12:57:24) :
“So…water comes from above…some times”
Thanks for this – very good point. The presence of water at very high altitude could alter our understanding of how the chemistry works, although quantification of the amount is needed.
Aren’t you all in a rather awkward position is you accept the conclusions of this paper.
That man realeased a greenhouse (CFCs) gases into the atmosphere and this caused global warming.
It would confirm that man can alter the climate by increasing the concentration of a GHG, which leaves the question why would CO2 be any different?