From the European Space Agency, a story of significant cold and wind patterns that have created an ozone “hole” in the Arctic where there normally isn’t one. The last time this happened was in 1997. It isn’t really a “hole” as you can see in the graphic below there are reduced levels of ozone, but nothing anywhere near zero.
Record loss of ozone over Arctic
ESA’s Envisat satellite has measured record low levels of ozone over the Euro-Atlantic sector of the northern hemisphere during March.
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HI-RES MP4 (Size: 1381 kb)
This record low was caused by unusually strong winds, known as the polar vortex, which isolated the atmospheric mass over the North Pole and prevented it from mixing with air in the mid-latitudes.
This led to very low temperatures and created conditions similar to those that occur every southern hemisphere winter over the Antarctic.
As March sunlight hit this cold air mass it released chlorine and bromine atoms – ozone-destroying gases that originate from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and break ozone down into individual oxygen molecules – predominantly in the lower stratosphere, around 20 km above the surface.
Ozone is a protective atmospheric layer found at around 25 km altitude that acts as a sunlight filter shielding life on Earth from harmful ultraviolet rays, which can harm marine life and increase the risk of skin cancer and cataracts.
Stratospheric temperatures in the Arctic show strong variations from winter to winter. Last year, temperatures and ozone above the Arctic were very high. The last unusually low stratospheric temperatures over the North Pole were recorded in 1997.
Scientists are investigating why the 2011 and 1997 Arctic winters were so cold and whether these random events are statistically linked to global climate change.
“In a changing climate, it is expected that on average stratospheric temperatures cool, which means more chemical ozone depletion will occur,” said Mark Weber from the University of Bremen.
“On the other hand, many studies show that the stratospheric circulation in the northern hemisphere may be enhanced in the future and, consequently, more ozone will be transported from the tropics into high latitudes and reduce ozone depletion.”
Answering this question requires more research on ozone modelling and ozone trend monitoring, which is only possible because of the historic satellite data on record. ESA’s Climate Change Initiative Programme has a project dedicated to this research.
“Measurements from the Envisat’s Sciamachy, MIPAS and GOMOS instruments are providing unique ozone information that is important in enabling scientists to separate chemical and dynamical changes and helping to identify the influence of climate change on the stratosphere. It is, therefore, essential to keep these instruments measuring for as long as possible,” said Weber.
Banned under the Montreal Protocol, CFCs have still not vanished from the air but are on the decline. Nevertheless, strong chemical ozone depletion will continue to occur in the coming decades during unusually cold Arctic winters.
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With all that cyan around the edges, doesn’t that make it a ozone doughnut? Or is there really supposed to be less ozone closer to the equator?
It’s obviously far worse than any of us thought, if there are particles at altitude with enough energy to transmute either chlorine, fluorine, or carbon into bromine. …that or the person who wrote this tripe was suffering a complete cranial-rectal inversion when they stated that bromine is released by the breakdown of CFCs.
Being a leading authority without an audience, I noted to a science group and in my own cover blog in Free Republic, that the Ozone layer is probably missed tied to aerosols and Free-On.
I noted in the USA Today a while back that Ozone ground production in North Carolina has dropped from critical stages over the last four years to normal.
Since I first correlate climate changes to sunspot activity, it appears that 2006 marks the year we switched from global warming to global cooling. All USA average temperatures went negative by that year.
Thus, we should now focus on the basic theory that the Ozone Layer is an inter-glacial, global warming feature much as hurricane activity and glacier activity are in correlation to sunspot activity.
In the Balances, We are still slightly on the Global Cooling side now.
This will soon mirror the 1963 to 1975 cycle that had everyone preaching
against aerosols and predicting an Ice Age. Again, the ground crew arguing with ice age scientists.
Most Sincerely,
Paul Pierett
What a shame that the ozone layer was only measurable from a few years ago. Pity the Royal Navy salty old sea dogs couldn’t keep records centuries ago. Would the Warmists have any chance of yet more scare mongering? Somehow and this is hardly scientific but I feel in my bones that we have been subjected to variable ozone levels since before mankind came into existence………
I always did prefer my old aircon mixture R12 and we were conned into getting rid of it!
[snip . . reposting the same comment because it hasn’t appeared in the thread will not result in a different outcome . . the post contains words that the spam filter reacts to and the post goes into the spam folder . . when a moderator gets around to clearing out the spam folder it will, all things being equal, be posted. If you think your contribution has gotten lost simply post a short alert to the mods and it will be dealt with more quickly . .
BTW expressing “bitter disappointment” in Anthony is a bit OTT. This is a science blog not a place for such naked emotion. . . kb]
>>In a changing climate, it is expected that on average
>>stratospheric temperatures cool,
I thought that the whole thesis of CO2 AGW depended on stratospheric warming, caused by the CO2, and this forms the ‘greenhouse’ absobtion and emmission layer that warms the world.
No stratospheric warming, no CO2 AGW.
.
The article has this:
“Measurements from the Envisat’s Sciamachy, MIPAS and GOMOS instruments are providing unique ozone information that is important in enabling scientists to separate chemical and dynamical changes”
But these ‘researchers’ love to plug the chemical rather than the ‘dynamical’ .
For ‘dynamical’ read the influence of the night jet that brings nitrogen ions from the mesosphere that soak up oxygen ions thereby reducing the population of oxygen ions that are available to couple as O3 (ozone).
The activity of the night jet varies with surface pressure. We know that the AO index has been extraordinarily low which indicates very high surface pressure over the pole. The outflow of cold air from the poles is responsible for the cold winter.
These guys have trouble joining the dots. I dont think its really a failure of the intellect. They have an agenda. They call themselves ‘researchers’, but they are not really doing ‘science’ at all.
The North polar vortex is moderately unstable in the winter. Stratosphere temps can be either much lower than normal or much higher than normal. This then leads to much lower or much higher Ozone destruction than normal.
All the spikes shown in graph below for the UAH North Pole stratosphere temps occur in the winter (a relatively large anomaly of +/- 7.0C). This winter has been one of the large spikes down.
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/1954/uahnorthpolesstrat.png
There is climate phenomenon know as Sudden Stratospheric Warming events in the polar vortexes when the vortexes break down and warmer southern air infiltrates the vortex. In years when the North Pole Stratosphere temps spike up (as shown in the chart above), there is more SSWs or particularly strong ones.
In 2009, one of the strongest SSWs on record occurred (the big red spot below) and this is certainly reflected in the Stratosphere temps from UAH. [Note SSWs are much more common in the NH than in the SH and only two SSWs have been recorded in Antarctica].
The big red spot is a breakdown in the polar vortex in 2009.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_ALL_NH_2009.gif
There have been no SSWs in the Arctic this year which is not particularly unusual since about 1 out every 3 years does not have them. So naturally, there is big spike down and a decline in Ozone since colder temperatures influence the level of solar destruction of Ozone.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_ALL_NH_2011.gif
The North Pole shows a completely different pattern than the global stratosphere temps. In my mind, the global stratosphere pattern is strictly a volcano signature and there is NO GHG signal evident in reality. [The below pattern is evident in the data back to 1958 when the Agung volcanic eruptions in 1963 and 1964 caused the same pattern. Prior to that, the last stratospheric volcanic eruption was Novarupta in 1912, 50 years earlier which allowed enough time for the Ozone to rebuild up to 1963.]
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/29/lowerstratospheretemps.png
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadat/images/update_images/global_upper_air.png
The Greens defined an ozone ‘hole’ as anything below 220 Dobson units several decades ago, and nobody ever called them loudly enough on their con job.
We have such a ‘hole’ most every Antarctic winter. We probably always have and always will. It is normal for that time of year. Something to do with UV light and oxygen, and how ozone is created.
In the summer, it always gets back into the 400s or so. Normal for that time of year.
OK Dumb question from a social scientist.
Are we seeing a natural centrifuge with this, or do I need to keep taking the tablets?
LeeHarvey says:
April 6, 2011 at 3:46 am
That’s because they’ve lumped BCF, (BromoChloroFluoromethane,) in with CFCs
DaveE.
So why should I believe that only “Chlorofluorocarbons” inject chlorine and bromine into the upper atmosphere? Don’t the gases emitted by volcanoes contain the same elements? Aren’t the amount of gases emitted by volcanoes a large multiple of the man-made variety?
Given that “modeling” was used to determine that humans were causing the problem, I’m betting this is just another spin story. I’m skeptical about DuPont’s interest as well, since their patent on freon was running out, and they were strongly supportive of the charge that freon was the bad guy.
Does anyone know the gas constituents of last years’ various Icelandic eruptions? Was there a free chlorine content? I once saw a partial list of chlorine ion emitting, volcanic vents, but have been unable to locate it. Anyone? GK
I read at least one article (no link, sorry) which baldly stated that this hole was directly due to CO2 trapping the Earth’s heat lower down in the atmosphere, so the upper atmosphere got colder than it should have and thus the ozone was depleted.
So, my immediate question would have to be “Why didn’t this happen last year, when CO2 levels over the Arctic were almost as high? For that matter, as CO2 levels go higher every year, shouldn’t the ‘hole’ over the Antarctic keep getting bigger every year for the same reason?”
Other than having been broken down, could the ozone have been displaced? It is, after all, rather thicker in the adjacent regions.
I’m with some others (like EMSmith) on ozone production — there seems to be a basic misunderstanding on how ozone is produced & resides in the stratosphere. IIRC, ozone is short-lived (much shorter than a few months), yet high ozone levels are usually present along the “rim” of the polar vortices all winter when there is almost negligible UV exposure. How is it produced & how does it persist there? Transport from lower latitudes doesn’t make much sense as the ozone levels are higher at the rim than anywhere equatorward where the ozone would supposedly be produced.
Once the “fix” was in, further research on this apparently has dried up as no one wants to upset the CFC protocols.
Ozone is a bigger greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide. This appears to be part of a negative feedback cycle. Does anyone know if any of the climate models include it?
And can anyone tell me the current status of the paper reported here, http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070924/full/449382a.html that claimed “at least 60% of ozone destruction at the poles seems to be due to an unknown mechanism”?
Read LU 2009 PRL 102, 118501 and forget about Webber…
I appreciate that nature provides so much for people with letters after their names to study and worry over. But I also now wonder if perhaps Chicken Little was just a Ph.D who was ahead of the pack in the game of catastrophic predictions requiring government research money. Excuse me while I consult my tree rings for a resolution on this.
Since the Ozone Holes occur in the winter and during the winter almost no solar radiation reaches the ground above the Arctic and below the Antarctic circles (and that which does is at near tangential angles with the ground), polar bears, marine life, and the occasional stray environmentalist reasearcher or grandstander are at no risk from UV light passing through such Ozone Holes.
You would think that a fair-minded report would mention this, so that all of us lovers of the fuzzy (bears) and foolish (environmentalists) would not be beset with unnecessary anxiety.
Humans tend to forget history. Here are the predictions from the most recent WMO Scientific Assessments of Ozone Depletion (2006 and 2010), not mentioning their 1994, 1998 and 2002 Assessments:
2006 WMO prediction: “Arctic springtime ozone is projected to increase by 0% to 10% between 2000 and 2020, reaching 1980 values much earlier than when Arctic EESC (CFCs) decreases to 1980 values (2060-2070). By 2100, Arctic ozone is projected to be substantially above 1980 values”.
2010 WMO prediction: “The ozone loss in Arctic winter and spring between 2007 and 2010 has been variable, but has remained in a range comparable to the values prevailing since the early 1990s”. “New analyses of both satellite and radiosonde data give increased confidence in changes in stratospheric temperatures between 1980 and 2009. The global-mean lower stratosphere cooled by 1–2 K and the upper stratosphere cooled by 4–6 K between 1980 and 1995. There have been no significant long-term trends in global-mean lower stratospheric temperatures since about 1995”. “The global middle and upper stratosphere are expected to cool in the coming century, mainly due to CO2 increases”. “Global ozone is projected to increase approximately in line with the ODS decline, and the increase is accelerated by cooling of the upper stratosphere. Global ozone is not very sensitive to circulation changes, so high confidence can be placed in this projection. The evolution of ozone in the Arctic is projected to be more sensitive to climate change than in the Antarctic. The projected strengthening of the stratospheric Brewer-Dobson circulation is expected to significantly increase lower stratospheric ozone in the Arctic, augmenting the GHG-induced ozone increase from upper stratospheric cooling and hastening the return to 1980 levels”.
So, would the above WMO reports or the widely-accepted photochemical theory predict a largest arctic ozone depletion for 2011? Definitely not!
In 2011, the sunlight (solar radiation) has almost the minimum intensity and the level of CFCs has decreased since around one decade ago. Isn’t the apperance of an “unprecedent” polar ozone hole unexpected from the photochemical theory of ozone hole?
Isn’t there an existing cosmic-ray related theory of the ozone hole, proposed by Dr. Q.-B. Lu in the University of Waterloo, predicting a maximum ozone loss in the polar region during the maximum cosmic ray radiation around 2008-2010 [Q.-B. Lu, Physics Reports 487, 141-167(2010); Physical Review Letters 102, 118501(2009)]? Noteably, Dr. Lu also discovered the correlation between global warming and CFCs and predicting a long-term global cooling in the coming five decades [Journal of Cosmology 8, 1846-1862(2010)].
The truth is revealing, isn’t it?
The last time this happened was in 1997.
====================================
so again
They are turning something common and natural into a bedwetting experience….
……something that has been happening forever that we wouldn’t even notice or pay attention to
….I didn’t realize so much climate science was sponsored by Depends
The Antarctic Ozone hole: has man’s cause been discredited? It is MSM quiet.
Curiously enough, there is this little gem from the British Antarctic Survey!
Woops won’t link. Will try again later. For the time being, I did a google search on “ozone hole” & went to BAS. I know it’s at the other end, anyway for those interested, the “recent research” done in 2007, talks of large amounts of ozone depleting halogens, bromine & iodine found in Antarctica. These halogens do not appear to come from wicked old hooman beans, but the bromine comes from the sea-salt, & the iodine from algae that apparently covers the underside of the sea-ice. Could this be something occurring up top?
Yawn
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070924/full/449382a.html