While this is good news any way you look at it, I note there are a number of news reports saying that the “Ozone Hole Shrinks to Record Low” which are non thinking media regurgitations from a LiveScience article by Stepahnie Pappas. Pappas even shows how this isn’t true in her own story, see the yellow highlight below the image:
From the European Space Agency, I have the original press release, with no mention of a record low:
Is the Ozone Hole on the road to recovery?
Satellites show that the recent ozone hole over Antarctica was the smallest seen in the past decade. Long-term observations also reveal that Earth’s ozone has been strengthening following international agreements to protect this vital layer of the atmosphere.
According to the ozone sensor on Europe’s MetOp weather satellite, the hole over Antarctica in 2012 was the smallest in the last 10 years.
The instrument continues the long-term monitoring of atmospheric ozone started by its predecessors on the ERS-2 and Envisat satellites.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, an ozone hole has developed over Antarctica during the southern spring – September to November – resulting in a decrease in ozone concentration of up to 70%.
Ozone depletion is more extreme in Antarctica than at the North Pole because high wind speeds cause a fast-rotating vortex of cold air, leading to extremely low temperatures. Under these conditions, human-made chlorofluorocarbons – CFCs – have a stronger effect on the ozone, depleting it and creating the infamous hole.
Over the Arctic, the effect is far less pronounced because the northern hemisphere’s irregular landmasses and mountains normally prevent the build-up of strong circumpolar winds.
Reduced ozone over the southern hemisphere means that people living there are more exposed to cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation.
International agreements on protecting the ozone layer – particularly the Montreal Protocol – have stopped the increase of CFC concentrations, and a drastic fall has been observed since the mid-1990s.
However, the long lifetimes of CFCs in the atmosphere mean it may take until the middle of this century for the stratosphere’s chlorine content to go back to values like those of the 1960s.
The evolution of the ozone layer is affected by the interplay between atmospheric chemistry and dynamics like wind and temperature.
If weather and atmospheric conditions show unusual behaviour, it can result in extreme ozone conditions – such as the record low observed in spring 2011 in the Arctic – or last year’s unusually small Antarctic ozone hole.
To understand these complex processes better, scientists rely on a long time series of data derived from observations and on results from numerical simulations based on complex atmospheric models.
Although ozone has been observed over several decades with multiple instruments, combining the existing observations from many different sensors to produce consistent and homogeneous data suitable for scientific analysis is a difficult task.
Within the ESA Climate Change Initiative, harmonised ozone climate data records are generated to document the variability of ozone changes better at different scales in space and time.
With this information, scientists can better estimate the timing of the ozone layer recovery, and in particular the closure of the ozone hole.
Chemistry climate models show that the ozone layer may be building up, and the hole over Antarctica will close in the next decades.
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Does anyone know for sure that there never was a hole in the ozone over Antarctica? Considering the nature of the magnetic field, it seems to me that it might very well be possible that there always has been a hole there. Has there ever been evidence that there really was a time when it didn’t exist?
Color me sceptical, both for the “record” and the anthropogenic origin of the “hole”. Another simulation which gives the results desired, rather than the genuine causes. If Pinatubo can blow a hole in the ionosphere in the NH, what does the southern ring of fire do with it’s gases?
“According to the ozone sensor on Europe’s MetOp weather satellite, the hole over Antarctica in 2012 was the smallest in the last 10 years.”
You have to remember that eco-terrorists are also insane creaionists. 10 years is of course the life span of the earth just lie 180 or so years is for global warming. So yes smallest how ever…. EVER.
We also know for sure that that hole is 100% human caused and only fixable by humans repenting for the sins of mankind.
I still wonder if the Antarctica ozone depletion is caused by a tiny amount of chlorofluorocarbons which has been released mostly from countries in the northern hemisphere.
Isn’t the ozone concentration variation a ca. 100-year cyclic phenomenon driven by some extraterrestrial factor(s) ?
If it were human caused CFC’s, wouldn’t it be more apparent in the northern hemisphere?
Yup. Your moral and intellectual superiors at work…or lack thereof.
Just a few to many models here for my taste. I sure like lots of reliable empirical data though. I also wounder that effect the energetic or more quiescent sun has to do with this?
Seasonally-normalized annual & semiannual solar-terrestrial resonance persistence (measured from sunspot numbers via complex wavelet resonator):
http://oi50.tinypic.com/fo1u7l.jpg
I’m not convinced there was anything unusual going on with the “ozone hole” in the first place. It was there the first time they looked. We already know there were mistakes made in the calculations concerning ozone depletion caused by CFCs that caused them to overestimate the damage by two orders of magnitude. It’s weather. If you get a strong polar jet that keeps the air sequestered, you get a lot of ozone depletion that winter. Get a weak solar jet and you get less ozone depletion.
Oh Dear.
Many are ‘rattling’ about how the “Montreal Protocol is ‘WORKING'” yet I disagree.
Here is the set, ‘Lewis and Martin, circa 1950s, a Holding Jail Cell, Martin sitting in the back on a cot, and Lewis at the bars of the cell, shacking them and calling out, “What …. The hole is smaller …. The HOLE is smaller.”‘, while Martin completely ignores Jerry’s complaints and he enjoys his Martinis.
So what do we make of these NASA announcements, near the time of the Southern sea ice area minimum, which is on track to be a maximum of the minimum for 30+ years, that the Arctic has lost such a stupendously Earth Shattering great volume of sea ice [?].
NASA is ‘Lewis at the bars of the holding cell’ !
🙂
Funny but I didn’t see this fact talked about in those articles:
According to Jim Butler, who works for the NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, the warmer temperatures are the sole reason the ozone hole was so small in 2012.
“It happened to be a bit warmer this year high in the atmosphere above Antarctica, and that meat we didn’t see quite as much ozone depletion as we saw last year, when it was colder,” he said.
http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/ozone-layer-hole-hits-near-record-low/
So is warming in Antarctica a good thing or bad thing?
How long has it been since any CFC’s were manufactured? And they even state that atmospheric levels of CFC’s have fallen drastically since the mid 90’s. does that sound to you like something that will take decades more to leave the atmosphere?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually in favor of the CFC ban. There was evidence that it broke down stratospheric Ozone, and it was building up in the atmosphere, but that ‘hole’ is obviously not going away now any more then it did in 2002. next year or the year after it will be back to were it usually is.
Ozone in the Earth’s stratosphere is created by ultraviolet light striking oxygen molecules, splitting them into individual oxygen atoms; the atomic oxygen then combines with unbroken oxygen to create ozone. The ozone molecule is also reactive and unstable. When the sun goes down ozone is no longer created. No sunshine in the Antarctic winter results in a natural drop in stratospheric ozone. There will always be an ozone hole over Antarctica in the spring. I learned this in college in the late ’70s.
First off, CFC’s do not break down ozone, chlorine (supposedly from CFCs) does. But chlorine also has natural sources, and CFCs are heavy molecules that need a lot of turbulence to make it to the stratosphere, and a lot more to make it from the industrial north to the south pole.
Secondly, any increase in UV due to the lack of ozone over the south pole has little effect on animals of any kind, much less humans. The lowest ozone levels during the hole season are comparable to the normal levels in the tropics, and the sunlight near the pole travels through 50% more atmosphere getting there.
What the Montreal protocol did was replace one potent greenhouse gas CFC(s) with another potent greenhouse gas HCFC. While they are thought to have similar warming potential, HCFC has a shorter residence time in the atmosphere, and causes less GH warming in the longer term >5 years.
In reality we know almost nothing empirical about these gases in the atmosphere (except measuring their concentration), and the Montreal Protocol could well have contributed to late 20th century warming in various ways including the junking of large numbers of old CFC cooled fridges. And probably did contribute to the 21st century temperature stasis. Although no one dare say this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Global_warming_potential
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ozone_cfc_trends.png
Tom O says:
February 13, 2013 at 7:13 pm
Does anyone know for sure that there never was a hole in the ozone over Antarctica?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
At the bottom of the second graphic it says
Total Ozone Columns (DU)
DU stands for “Dobson Units”. They are named after Gordon Dobson who came up with the method and apparatus to measure the ozone layer in the 1920’s. One of the things he predicted was that there would be an ozone “hole” decades before anyone went to Antarctic to see. Of course by then everyone forgot that it was supposed to be there in the first place and got very excited.
I don’t believe there has ever been empirical evidence that Antarctic ozone correlates in any way with atmospheric CFC’s. Susan Solomon et al jumped to a conclusion years ago about cause/effect, twisted some data about natural variations in O3 levels to make it appear as a “human handprint”, and browbeat a bunch of gullible politicians into thinking that the Montreal Protocol would show that they cared and affect O3 levels.
The Freon manufacturers didn’t really object because their patent was about to expire, and they’d already come up with a cost-comparable alternative (under patent).
So the UN got to feel that they had “changed the world” by international convention.
The arrogant bas*ards still think they can control the world.
BTW, if anyone has contrary evidence about O3 and CFC’s, I’d be glad to evaluate it
In 2011 the hole was in many ways the biggest.
I’m with scarletmacaw…. I thiught they decided years ago, though well after patents expired, that CFCs aren’t wot dunnit?
Mark
GeologyJim: Bingo!
I was in the restaurant equipment business at the time and and the refrigeration department had quite a bit of disucssion about the pending expiry of Du Pont’s freon patents. And, yeah, they had new patented substitutes already on line, so not to worry. And the greenie dorks played right into their hands; in fact did their work for them, and for nothing. In my moral universe, this is called racketeering.
And one topic of discussion then was, since there is comparatively little atmospheric interchange between the N and S hemispheres, howizzit all the CFCs are ending up in Antarctica?
A classic example of our corporate betters working the useful idiots to their advantage.
Now, take global warmunism…
Could it be a correlation to the sun’s Polar field reversal?
Solar Cycle 23’s reversal was in 2002. Could be coincidence.
Maybe in five or ten more solar cycles we’ll have a better idea of what really impacts the ozone hole…
Michael P says:
February 13, 2013 at 8:23 pm
While that is basically correct, that is not the reason for the “hole”. The ozone level remains fairly constant during the long night of winter. It does not really go away until spring because UV is what destroys the ozone. Also, it has to be very cold, much colder than the -70C or so of the typical tropopause. When it is extremely cold, ice crystal form. Chlorine on these ice crystals catalyze the destruction of ozone and because of the low angle of the Sun, the rate of destruction is greater than the rate of creation. When the atmosphere warms, the ice sublimes and the rate of destruction decreases. As the Sun raises higher over the horizon, it produces more ozone and the size of the hole decreases.
When the hole is at its largest, Sunlight passes thru about 600 miles of sea level equivalent atmosphere and has lost most of the energy needed to create ozone. Ozone peaks when the path is less than one mile equivalent. (The pressure is low so that 50 miles of summer atmosphere is equivalent to only a few hundred feet at sea level.) Notice that they always report Dobson units and not sea level exposure. The first measures the amount of ozone and the second how important the first number is.
Philip Bradley says:
February 13, 2013 at 8:59 pm
So your sources are wikipedia. Very naive.
Lovelock on ozone;
http://tomnelson.blogspot.no/2010/03/james-lovelock-on-value-of-sceptics-and.html
Wait .. when it was larger a couple of years ago.. it was China’s fault.. and now that it’s smaller its because of the excellent climate blah blah.. I wonder if our Magnetosphere shrinking and expanding could have anything to do with it. Point though, when they banned the lower numbered refrigerants, they caused the units to need more power to be as effective… now the most recent “upgrade” will cause the units to need way more power to run as effectively. So that new energy saver you get, wont be as effective as the old one energy wise.. isnt that a kick in the pants?