My morning double take: "Arctic on the verge of record ozone loss"

Oh my! All along I thought it was all the horrible CFCs you guys in the NH were releasing that were somehow spiralling down to the SH and decimating our ozone layer down here. I am pleased no-one is complaining (yet) that we from the southern hemisphere are releasing nasties that are counter-spiralling. Can people who have been making a killing (of the financial kind) on refrigerant phaseout continue to do so?

Steven Goddard has been posted old history and old headlines, back to the 1800’s, on his blog. What’s common is talking about the Arctic melting, icebergs breaking loose, and predictions of an ice free Arctic – even back in the 1800’s.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/
We have our sights set too high….
From reading all those headlines, what’s obvious is that melting is more common than freezing, and hysterical predictions of melting are more common than common sense.

It’s beyond worse than we thought. The evil CO2 molecules have joined forces with CFC molecules to form Alien dark energy molecules. Time to run up and down Broadway with a “The End is Near” signs.

Anyone have any data on the 1958 IGY (International Geophysical Year) data?
Seems I remember something about thin Arctic Ozone then….

Hu McCulloch says:
March 15, 2011 at 8:22 am
Hugh, your thoughts are SO last week! This clear and precise analysis shows beyond a shadow of doubt that it’s worse than we thought. Anthropogenic CFCs have been proven to be more robust at causing sciency sounding stuff to happen. ROBUST, I tell you. ROBUST! Stop taking money from the oil industry. Stop thinking. Stop doing anything. After all, humans are a virus that needs wiped off the planet, don’t you know. Don’t waste any more of our time trying to get us to think for ourselves. Here at WUWT, we all prefer to be mindless little viruses content to do the bidding of our much more enlightened superiors.
/sarc.

I have some really big problems with this.
Whilst there is nothing inconsistent in having warming at the surface and cooling at the top of the troposphere (as the statement says the heat is trapped lower down) the level at which one should see cooling is just wrong. The greenhouse theory says that as CO2 concentrations increase the level at which CO2 radiates into space is higher and cooler and thus a reduced radiation loss in the 14-18 micron band has to be compensated for by a warmer surface. For this to be true the level at which CO2 radiates directly into space has to be below the tropopause since at any higher level the temperature increases with altitude. The tropopause begins at about 8km over the poles at which altitude the ozone layer is only 10% of its peak. As the statement says ozone peaks at 20km. If the statosphere is cooling at 20km it is not because of reduced heating from below. As others have suggested it is far more likely to be due to reduced ultraviolet radiation from the abnormally quiet sun.
Furthermore what is this strange reaction whereby ozone is relatively stable at around 230K but reduces by half at 225K? As far as I know the cooling of the lower stratosphere (which I believe is yet to be confirmed) is no more than this.
It is also misleading to talk about the need for more UV protection this spring. The coutries with the biggest problem of skin cancer are Australia and New Zealand and these have a band of particularly dense ozone above them. They have more ozone protection than anyone else on the globe but I have yet to meet an Antipodean who does no believe that the problem is a relative lack of ozone. It is also worth noting that the occupations with the lowest level of skin cancers include roofers and farmers who are exposed to the most UV. This paradox is explained by some recent Caltech research which suggests that, contrary to what the pharmceutical companies say, the damaging UV is UVa. The level of UVa is not influenced greatly by the ozone layer. What the ozone layer does affect is UVb and UVc. UVb is particularly important because a high levels of UVb causes the skin to produce melanin. Melanin in the skin does absorb UVa. People with high levels of melanin (dark skins) have almost no UV related skin cancer. They do have skin cancers but these are randomly distributed over the body (including soles of feet and armpits) whereas the skin cancers found in the fair skinned population are nearly always in skin exposed to sunlight like the face. Why does the pharmaceutical industry say that UVb is the damaging wavelength? Could it be the fact that they have a cream that will absorb UVb but do not yet have one that will remove UVa? Surely not!

A lot of broken links on the WUWT Atmosphere Reference page but if what they are saying is true, where is the evidence that proves it?
Ionosphere for yesterday but its difficult to find data to compare it to. Assumption, if “something” radical has occurred in the last 2 weeks, a simple comparison will prove it; where’s the data?
http://www2.nict.go.jp/y/y223/simulation/ion/tn300.html

A clue:
Minimum temperatures in the Arctic stratosphere
http://acdb-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/met/ann_data.html
are below the levels for PSC formation (and halogen-related catalytic ozone depletion via heterogeneous chemistry), which allows for very confident predictions of large springtime ozone loss. See 2005 for similar conditions and predictions:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/will-spring-2005-be-a-bad-one-for-arctic-ozone/
and validation:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/05/2005-arctic-ozone-loss/
but please carry on…

NASA researchers using 22 years of satellite-derived data have confirmed a theory that the strength of “long waves,” bands of atmospheric energy that circle the Earth, regulate the temperatures in the upper atmosphere of the Arctic, and play a role in controlling ozone losses in the stratosphere.

Nope, sorry. A study of data cannot “confirm” a theory. It can be seen as evidence fo such, but it cannot confirm it, not if “confirm means “prove.”
Also, as is typical in climate science, the assertion that a correlation means one phenomenon “regulates” another or “plays a role in controlling” is overblown and is jumping to conclusions. Correlation, as we all know, means A might cause B, or A and B are caused by some third phenomenon C, or that even B might cause A. Simply finding that they go up or down in tandem is no scientific reason to assert one causes the other. Not unless they also literally eliminate ANY other phenomenon from being the causative agent.
During my time in the military, we had a running joke, that potatoes cause murder, since it can be shown that in 95% of murders the perpetrator ate potatoes within X number of days preceding the murder. Correlation, schmorelation – assigning cause and effect is illogical without several thorough studies that with a process of elimination rule out any and all other causes.

Hmm, you sure they’re from NASA? Seems to me that the sun has picked up the last two weeks in sunspots and discharges (and increased UV radiation). Maybe they might check with their solar experts to see if the ozone would be affected. 😉
Regards,
Bob