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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What an embarrassment. The ozone hole is a natural phenomenon that has always been present as a result of the solar winds increasing the rate of photodissociation at the magnetic poles (where there happens to be very little in the way of vertical convection to lift CFCs to any significant altitude..they’re 6X heavier than the net weight of an avg N2 molecule. We have never detected CFCs anywhere in the stratosphere, let alone at the poles. Are we to believe that CFCs emitted in the NH were somehow convectively transported solely to the south pole, despite the Hadley Cell flow suggesting this cannot happen? Why no effect in the equatorial stratosphere, which is more subject to convection?
I’m surprised Mr. Anthony Watts buys into the CFC-O^3 destruction myth.
Please read: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/ozone/king.htm
Despite all the information you may have read, there is not one shred of supportable evidence that CFCs have found their way 40 miles up above the Earth. No one has ever found any up there because they are roughly five times heavier than air. They are like a brick in a swimming pool. It is not often that you will see a brick floating to the surface of your pool. CFCs are so dense that even as a gas you could fill a bucket with it and pour the contents of one bucket into another. Secondly there is no evidence that they can destroy anything because they are very stable and unreactive substances. Most dictionaries and chemistry books describe them as inert gases.
Faced with this rather unfortunate logic, some researchers extend the plot, claiming that in the upper atmosphere the intense UV light is sufficient to break down the CFCs, releasing chlorine which then does the damage. If that actually could happen though, then the “ozone layer” would just get replaced by the CFC layer, which would then further “protect” us from UV radiation.
There is, too, another difficulty with the theory: the fact that all the CFCs in the world are insufficient to even dent the known amount of ozone. The factor is 1 in 100,000. So we get told of yet another scenario — that in some imagined chain reaction, chlorine would keep on getting released by the UV until all the ozone was destroyed. But even if we supposed that this could happen, then all of these reactions going on would only further absorb UV, protecting us even more. We would right now be dying from lack of UV light and vitamin “D” deficiency.
There is no evidence that such a chain reaction would occur. Also, it is a long jump and unscientific to say that if a reaction could occur, then it would. Furthermore, there are some 192 known chemical reactions and 48 photochemical reactions occurring in the stratosphere(the ozone area) all the time. How would it be that chlorine and ozone, which are only in minute quantities anyway, should be able to carry on this reaction to the exclusion of the other 241 known reactive processes?
And who says that the “holes” are getting bigger? In 1988 NASA’s Nimbus satellite appeared to show that the southern hole was increasing. Here was supposed proof that man was aggravating the situation. The fact that the following year’s results showed the hole smaller than ever previously recorded went totally unannounced, except in obscure journals. Neither was it reported that the variation in depletion-area size seemed to correspond with increases in sunspot activity, which throws out more UV radiation.
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/ozone/king.htm
@ur momisugly tokyoboy, Steve, and others…
On CFC’s and the ozone “hole”:
Why is there a “hole” in the ozone layer over the south pole? Because it’s really, really cold there.
First of all, it’s not a hole, it’s just an area where the ozone layer is thinnest. Okay, so why is the ozone layer not as thick there? First let’s understand ozone in the atmosphere.
High energy radiation from the sun in the form of UV rays hits the atmosphere. Some of these rays happen to strike O2 molecules. The energy can break them apart. Still more UV can then hit these broken up oxygens and form them into O3 – ozone. Then, some more UV rays hit that ozone and (surprise) break it up and can form it back into O2. And so on. So having oxygen in the upper atmosphere “blocks” a lot of UV rays from hitting the earth’s surface by constantly going through this cycle. Protecting life on earth, yadda yadda. So there is a layer of ozone all over earth in the upper atmosphere, around the stratosphere. The thickness of this layer varies.
One of the ways the thickness varies is that there is a large area around the South Pole where it is the thinnest anywhere. Remember that it is generally much colder around the South than the North Pole (land mass versus water, etc.). So a special type of cloud forms, PSC, or polar stratospheric cloud. It just so happens that some chemicals that float around in the air can help break up O3 molecules. With air circulation around the pole and these special clouds, these chemicals can collect in higher concentrations than normal. So the ozone “layer” appears to have a “hole” down there.
However, as some have mentioned, this thinness was predicted before it was observed, and a half century of observation has never delivered evidence that human-released CFC’s or other chemicals directly contribute to this “hole” by making their way south and collecting there, like some kind of awesome anti-ozone chemical club where they just hang out and wreck O3 all day long.
In fact, the “hole” has very likely always been there, at least as long as there has been a land mass at the pole. But, by the time people might have accepted that, CFC’s had been also labeled a dangerous “greenhouse gas”.
I hope you enjoyed my kindergarten level explanation. It doesn’t really tell the whole story but you get the important points.
Of course, if you make a computer model and input that CFC’s create the ozone hole, and then project that CFC’s go away, and the hole closes up, well….
That’s like asking the computer to solve 2+x=4, when you’ve already told the computer that x=2…
Ozone reduced and the stratosphere cooled when the sun was more active.
Ozone increasing and the stratosphere warming when the sun became more active.
Looks like they have the sign of the solar effect wrong.
It appears likely that something about atmospheric chemistry actually causes net destruction of ozone when the sun is active and net creation when the sun is less active.
There is some evidence to support that proposition.
The jets shift equatorward when the stratosphere warms and that happened in the Little Ice Age / Maunder Minimum and in the last 10 years.
The jets shift poleward when the stratosphere cools and that happened both in the MWP and the recent warm period.
Why does ozone manifest itself to create ‘holes’ over the Poles and not mix with other gases over the whole area? And do we know for certain that a bigger hole means less ozone as opposed to the gas being differently distributed around the globe due to differing atmospheric conditions? And finally, do we have concrete proof that the actions of we humans has any effect whatsoever on the ozone content of the atmosphere and the size of the holes?
The ozone ‘hole’ is a completely natural occurrence and only became a ‘problem’ when it was discovered. It varies in size due to natural oscillations – some of them multi-decadal in length – and no conclusions can be drawn from the measurements of just a few years.
To claim that mankind can in any way influence the stratosphere by what it does on the other side of the earth is pure speculation made by ‘scientists’ on the funding gravy train.
The reason for banning the harmless CFCs was non other than an attempt by governments to extend their control over our lives – proof being that the UN was behind it all.
And think of all the money being made by those who have to control and monitor the production and movement of these chemicals.
CFC’s: I call them Life
Pity they did not show any data before 1960. I have some data from the swiss alps that goes back to 1927. Looking at these data, you can see ozone also going up from 1927 – 1950. From then onwards there is a clear bending point near 1950 where we see ozone balancing and starting to curve down. It then keeps going down, until, as can be seen from the graph above, 1995. From 1995 it starts moving up again.
My research suggests a natural process taking place, with the CFC influence probably having been a red herring, or a very small influence:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
looking at maximum temperatures, (energy-in) we see 1995 as a significant date, when we changed signed from warming to cooling.
Reduced ozone over the southern hemisphere means that people living there are more exposed to cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation.
This is in your face alarmism – pun intended.
As the first graphic shows very well, outside the depleted area over the Antarctic continent there is a ring of enhanced ozone readings. The largest ozone hole measured since records began in 1979 was in 2006: it never went much outside 60°S. The only people affected by the ‘cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation’ are those who live and work on the Antarctic continent. I don’t imagine that they will be on their beach towels in early spring in the Antarctic. Those who may be at the beach in early spring in the Southern Hemisphere (big place compared to the area affected by the ‘ozone hole’) will be experiencing the extra protection from UV provided by the red and yellow ring in the graphic above.
You can add the European Space Agency to the list of organisations that flat out lies for money.
They should be utterly ashamed of their unscientific pronouncements.
A couple of problems with the ozone hole:
1 Who lives under the ozone hole to be effected by the UV radiation.
2. What do they wear.
3. How did they measure it prior to the 1980’s with no Satellites
4.The ozone hole always occurs at the end of the SH Winter considering
the extreme South latitudes involved how much UV or any radiation for that matter
could there be.
At both poles, ozone decreases from 1970 to 2000, then increases.
Global temperature increased from 1970 to 2001, then decreased (ignoring the 1998 El Nino).
Looks like they share a driver.
Love the advert for the Dodge RAM 1500. So LiveScience is being paid by Detroit?
Tinypic is malfunctioning severely. For example check out the mess it’s (very unfortunately) making of Bob Tisdale’s links: link redirects, excessively lengthy delays loading simple images meaning people simply aren’t going to bother, file types changed, link addresses modified by appending characters, etc. So it’s time to switch allegiances to another free image host to see how that goes comparatively. What follows here replaces the link I gave above.
Track Switch
Seasonally-normalized annual & semiannual solar-terrestrial resonance persistence (measured from sunspot numbers via complex wavelet resonator):
http://imageshack.us/a/img692/3756/c1a6mo.gif
As long as there’s a Southern Polar Vortex;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/29/new-wuwt-polar-vortex-reference-page/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/climatic-phenomena-pages/polar-vortex/
it seems likely that there will be an ozone “hole”, as well as a bunch of other “holes”, i.e.:
Within the Polar Vortex, “Air from very high altitudes descends vertically through the center of the vortex, moving air to lower altitudes over several months.” NASA
“The walls of the polar vortex act as the boundaries for the extraordinary changes in chemical concentrations. Now the polar vortex can be considered a sealed chemical reactor bowl, containing a water vapor hole, a nitrogen oxide hole and an ozone hole, all occurring simultaneously (Labitzke and Kunze 2005)” Stratosphere troposphere interactions: an introduction
There are also “measurements of low methane concentrations in the vortex made by the HALOE instrument on board the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite.” Rapid descent of mesospheric air into the stratospheric polar vortex, AGU 1993
All indications are that the ozone “hole”, as well as the water vapor “hole”, a nitrogen oxide “hole” and methane “hole” over Antarctica are naturally occurring and associated with Polar Vorticity.
“All indications are that the ozone “hole”, as well as the water vapor “hole”, a nitrogen oxide “hole” and methane “hole” over Antarctica are naturally occurring and associated with Polar Vorticity.”
The size and shape of the polar vortices appears to be affected by the mix of wavelengths and particles from the sun.
When the sun is active the vortices extend higher in the expanded atmosphere but contract horizontally at the surface so that the polar air masses withdraw towards the poles.
When the sun is inactive the vortices extend less high due to the contracted atmosphere but spread out more at the surface pushing the jets equatorward so that polar air masses surge more often across middle latitudes.
Those changes then affect global cloudiness and albedo to alter the amount of energy entering the oceans to fuel the climate system.
Pretty sure the majority of us agree that the Ozone Hole scare was, well, just a scare. We have absolutely no way of knowing what the ozone levels actually were prior to looking, and when we started looking the first thing we found was a “hole”. 20+ years of dramatically decreased CFCs appear to have made very little, if any, change in the “hole”.
Personally I see the Ozone scare as a lead-up to the Global Warming scare. They came out with an audaciously implausible mechanism for planetary peril, and made an outrageous solution, and… WOW… everyone bought into it. We all had to pay more for air conditioners and fridges, had to retrofit or scrap existing R12 based auto A/C units (or drive around with pressurized propane in our cars, ready to spray all over the scene in any significant collision), and I personally knew a plumber who did jail time for selling a painfully small quantity of R12 on the black market.
The level of ozone over the Antarctic is about as immaterial to this planet as anything, and yet careers have been made, fortunes transferred, self-righteous eco-loons gained credibility and fame. It’s a travesty. It’s ridiculous. I’m ashamed and embarrassed that I used to believe it. In fact, in the late 80s I was even spouting the precautionary principle, because, well, everyone did. If only we’d had the internet then, where all knowledge wasn’t filtered through newspapers, magazines, and TV stations.
I will never, EVER lose one precious second of sleep or generate one iota of internal stress worrying about CFCs or the Ozone Layer. It’s demonstrating natural variability. We should be studying it for pure Science, not deluding ourselves into thinking we’re somehow in control.
As the claimed chemistry that consumes ozone based on CFCs was falsified by Dupont-paid researchers, as revealed 20 years later (“We bad,” they said), any international agreements are a joke. The ozone hole responds to solar input and the amount depends on reactions involving ozone, nitrogen gas, the temperature, and incoming radiation, mostly UV.
They should disabuse themselves that they accomplished anything by banning CFCs other than enriching Dupont, as they had the patent already (imagine that!) on a replacement refrigerant, and also starving and killing people in poor countries, as they could no longer afford to refrigerate their food properly. The replacement refrigerant was much more expensive. In the mind of the greenies, dying of starvation or food poisoning is perfectly natural and desirable.
Just The Facts says:
February 14, 2013 at 4:39 am ”
“All indications are that the ozone “hole”, as well as the water vapor “hole”, a nitrogen oxide “hole” and methane “hole” over Antarctica are naturally occurring and associated with Polar Vorticity.”
But why should the ozone minimum (see graph in article) come around the time of sunspot max, when ozone generation is also max? The answer is just what you said, “Polar Vorticity.” The ozone hole is a hole because ozone never gets there; its an ozone desert. Ozone autodecomposes in the descending air in the “eyewall” around the ozone hole as it sees increasing atmospheric pressure and higher autodecomposition rates, regardless of catalysts present or not present. The increased vorticity better isolates the ozone hole so that the radius shrinks and concentrations inside decrease to vanishing. Ozone concentrations inside the hole are about atmospheric dynamics, not about CFC’s.
So it is an increase in the rate of shrinking of a hole anomaly, right?
Couldn’t resist. 🙂
There’s nothing more visually “impressive”, but of less practical importance than the “ozone hole”.
Oh, wait, there is one. Arctic summer sea ice…
This drives me nuts — Ozone is an unstable substance. Just look at a table showing the half life of ozone at varous temperatures. There’s the reason for your ”ozone hole’ which starts forming when the sun goes down and continues until the sun comes up 3 months later. What could be clearer? Why all the complications?
A good question indeed. Joseph D’Aleo of Weatherbell.com wrote a piece in 2011, posted on WUWT. Here is his final paragraph:
Did they not blame, at least in part, this last season’s “record” high Antarctic sea ice on a “record” Southern Hemisphere ozone hole? And now this is apparently not the case? Man these warmers are pathetic….
Some good comments here! JB Sellers is right.
Village idiot is not an idiot!
Codetech knows what he is talking about.
I was caught in the same “ozone friendly” train. Amazing,to find out 25 years later that it is was all just a scam/false alarm……
It seems even Stephen Wilde now agrees with me? on my findings that we are just on a natural sine wave and we have to sit out the coming cold until 2038 or 2039…..
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/13/ozone-hole-in-antarctica-shrinks-significantly-but-not-a-record-low-as-erroneously-reported-elsewhere/#comment-1224643