Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.” George Orwell
There it was in reality! The headline I had tongue-in-cheek considered writing for a national newspaper.
Melting in the Arctic reached an all-time high in June: Ice has been disappearing at a rate of 29,000 square miles a day.
This is near the average daily rate of melt in the brief Arctic summer, but few people know this is natural. Approximately 10 million km2 of ice melts every summer in approximately 145 days, which is a melt rate of 68,965 km2 (26,627 square miles) per day. Besides, the variability is wide as a 2011 Journal of Geophysical Research article explains,
“The perennial (September) Arctic sea ice cover exhibits large interannual variability, with changes of over a million square kilometers from one year to the next. Here we explore the role of changes in Arctic cyclone activity, and related factors, in driving these pronounced year-to-year changes in perennial sea ice cover.”
In addition, determination of full ice cover is problematic (Figure 1) so different analysts get different results. It is further complicated by meltwater on the ice surface that the satellite reads as open water (Figure 2). Alarmists claim these are a sign of warming, but they ignore the fact the satellite readings of ice cover are compromised.
Figure 1 What percentage would you assign?
Figure 2 Meltwater on the ice, called freshets on river ice.
It is another example of alarmists and uninformed media reporting a natural situation as unnatural. It is a lie of omission because they only presented facts that suited their story, but lying and deception are now standard and condoned practice for some people. Apparently for them the end justifies the means.
With the introduction of the new paradigm of environmentalism and the subset global warming, natural events were presented as unnatural. The strategy provided a ‘no lose’ situation. People were easily misled because they don’t know what is normal. The few with some knowledge were easily marginalized as skeptics or conspiracy theorists. The sequence is to announce the imaginary problem, produce false science to make it ‘real’, introduce political strategies that do nothing except cost jobs and inconvenience people, and wait. When conditions return to “normal,” you claim victory for your science, policies, and wisdom. It is like the ice hockey defender who was considered good when he was so slow he missed the attacker’s feint and caught him coming back.
Recent political events in Washington, Britain, and Europe remind us of Orwell’s insightful novel Animal Farm. Lying is a constant of politics, but it is now legally endorsed by the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ), more appropriately the Department of Injustice. These political traits became standard for environmentalists and global warming advocates with the introduction of claims that humans were the cause of most environmental and climate change.
The characteristics of politics described by Orwell were manifest in the emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) beginning in November 2009. On the cover of their 2010 book Climategate, Mosher and Fuller wrote that,
“The Team led by Phil Jones and Michael Mann, in attempts to shape the debate and influence public policy:
· Actively worked to evade McIntyre’s Freedom of Information requests, deleting emails, documents, and even climate data
· Tried to corrupt the peer-review principles that are the mainstay of modern science, reviewing each other’s work, sabotaging efforts of opponents trying to publish their own work, and threatening editors of journals who didn’t bow to their demands
· Changed the shape of their own data in materials shown to politicians charged with changing the shape of our world, ‘hiding the decline’ that showed their data could not be trusted.”
Those descriptions fit Orwell’s observations. There is no doubt what was done and who did it. The problem was compounded and the practices condoned in the cover-up that followed. The Atlantic editor Clive Crook wrote,
“I had hoped, not very confidently, that the various Climategate inquiries would be severe. This would have been a first step towards restoring confidence in the scientific consensus. But no, the reports make things worse. At best they are mealy-mouthed apologies; at worst they are patently incompetent and even wilfully wrong. The climate-science establishment, of which these inquiries have chosen to make themselves a part, seems entirely incapable of understanding, let alone repairing, the harm it has done to its own cause.”
Unfortunately, Crook’s remarks are similar to those made about the testimony given by FBI Director James Comey before the US Congress hearing on July 7, 2016. The Director listed all the lies, deceptions, misdirection’s, abuse of procedures, and attacks on people and groups who questioned or challenged Hillary Clinton. He then concluded there was no criminality nor requirement for accountability or punishment. He condoned the behavior just like the groups set up to investigate Climategate. The behavior condoned by Comey will continue because it is now ‘officially’ justified. We know it will continue because it has in the environmentalist and AGW communities about global warming and ozone.
The CRU debacle was not the first application of “lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia” to advance a false narrative for a political agenda. It began with the “hole-in-the-ozone” issue. It was the first global-scale environmental deception. It was the first deliberately orchestrated misuse of science by a small group of people (cabal) using bureaucracies and the media for a political agenda. The public still doesn’t know there is no scientific basis for what was claimed. AGW proponents can’t let that truth emerge because it would undermine the larger ongoing global warming issue.
The revelation that the so-called “ozone hole” was recovering and almost back to “normal” was predictable. Not surprisingly, the ozone recovery story appeared under the name of Susan Solomon, a principal architect of the original ozone story and a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employee, described by Wikipedia as follows;
Her work formed the basis of the U.N. Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to protect the ozone layer by regulating damaging chemicals. Solomon served the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She was a contributing author for the Third Assessment Report. She was also Co-Chair of Working Group I for the Fourth Assessment Report.
The ozone story reappears now because the climate change story is losing momentum; Paris COP 21 commitments are failing; polls show little or no public concern; and the public attitude to lying politicians is spreading. The ozone story reinvigorates the climate deception by claiming the originators were correct. We were correct and saved the planet with the Montreal Protocol so you must listen to us on the climate issue.
In December 2015 I explained the purpose of the Ozone scare as a trial run for the CO2 scare and the deception to follow. It had all the components; a false claim of change being due to human activity, it was false because it assumed incorrectly that UV radiation, which creates ozone, was constant; use of the claim for a political agenda; and manufactured scientific evidence to support demands for political action.
The Ozone Issue Template
The Montreal Protocol is a template, but not for pushing the need for a Climate Protocol. It is a template
· For how ozone destruction by human produced Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) was a test run for the deception that human CO2 is causing global warming.
· Not because it worked, but because it was completely unnecessary, cost a lot of money and created a multitude of other problems.
· Because humans were blamed for atmospheric ozone destruction without evidence, while natural processes were ignored.
· For using a global environmental issue as justification for establishing a world government.
· For establishing the efficacy of claiming natural events as unnatural.
· For allowing bureaucrats to create and control the entire process outside of normal scientific methods, codes of conduct, and accountability.
· For establishing how bureaucrats could control the political agenda on environmental and climate issues.
The Montreal Protocol appeared to work because there was no problem in the first place. Variations in ozone were perfectly natural. If they don’t know this, they are scientifically incompetent. But that doesn’t matter because they need its false success for political reasons.
Nurtured by environmental hysteria and the determination to show all changes in the natural world are due to human activity, the claim that CFCs were destroying ozone changed from an unproven hypothesis to a scientific fact. All the other ingredients were at hand; the big corporation; the dangerous manufactured product; the luxury of refrigeration improving the quality of life for rich people at the expense of the poor and the environment; and the fear of increased skin cancer, especially among children. The political juggernaut was underway as fearful people demanded political action. As H. L. Mencken said,
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the public alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Most actions did not and could not deal with the problem. One geo-engineering solution proposed to produce ozone at ground level and pump it into the ozone layer. Then someone pointed out that this required more energy than humans produce in total.
There are still no “holes in the ozone”, but the area of thinning over Antarctica continues to vary due to natural conditions. As the climate change deception falters, the counterattack builds. Out of desperation, they fall back on the illusionary “success” of the Montreal Protocol, thus risking the exposure of that charade. Orwell knew the fate of those who expose or even question the charade. He wrote,
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
Figure 1.- I would say at least 98%,. Fig 2 = 75%. What are the “official” numbers for these areas?
Based on bow cam pictures from MS Bremmen passing through Beliot Straight in 2013, 30% or less.
Any reexamination on the dangers of using DDT? I thought it has been discredited. Maybe they should use DDT in Brazil to help eradicate mosquitoes prior to the Olympics, etc.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“It is another example of alarmists and uninformed media reporting a natural situation as unnatural. It is a lie of omission because they only presented facts that suited their story, but lying and deception are now standard and condoned practice for some people. Apparently for them the end justifies the means.”
Another Dr. Tim Ball must read…
Meanwhile I sit here desperately trying to get my house in S.W. Florida cooler than 80℉. What should have been a fairly easy and cheap AC repair has become a living nightmare because of the forced change in coolants and the acceptance of lying that Dr Ball talks about. I know a bit of meteorology so I am not easily fooled by A.C. repairmen who try to trick me about R.H. temperature and dew point, but I really have very little idea about how central A.C. really works, so I am vulnerable to be taken advantage of in this area. I do know that the coolant has been forced to be changed yet again, to the benefit of the government and Dupont, this required that my whole system be replaced and not just the condenser, but lies upon lies have left me very hot under the collar and without truly working AC.
Yet again? That doesn’t sound right. Get more than one opinion and ask someone you know to recommend someone honest and knowledgeable.
Go to reality348.wordpress.com and there is a heap of observations collated by erl happ using nullschoolearth and more…
Someone should develop an update to Orwell’s Animal Farm by changing its plot to show the folly of CAGW. It could easily start out with Chicken Little running around instilling fear among the animals, etc. etc.
Good post Dr. Tim, as usual. I wrote a long letter of support but wordpress ate it again. I’ve grown to hate wordpress.
Maybe. in the spirit of learning from mistakes, you could compose your lengthy responses in a simple text editor, then copy and paste.
Perhaps WP hasn’t eaten it, perhaps it’s just in moderation. I usually get no notification that a comment went to moderation, it just doesn’t appear right away.
“With the introduction of the new paradigm of environmentalism and the subset global warming, natural events were presented as unnatural. The strategy provided a ‘no lose’ situation. People were easily misled because they don’t know what is normal.” Tim Ball
The interest for environmentalists in the ozone hole this time around appears to be to regulate/phase out the use of bromine. Bromine is used in agriculture to control many pests and pathogens and thus to dramatically increase yields for orchards, strawberries, and other crops.
This element appears to have a natural cycle in the oceans. The man made chemicals are only a fraction of the naturally occurring bromines. It is just as Tim Ball has pointed out: because we are ignorant of natural cycles for the elements and compounds, we are easily panicked by unscrupulous scientists. These practitioners are pursuing their usual Anthropocene Age scientific paradigm, in which all human activity upsets “tipping points” in nature, resulting in catastrophes.
I am very distressed when I think of the losses to growers–and therefore to all of us in this country– that will come about if these environmentalists get their way and actually ban methyl bromide.
I will just copy and paste some bromine research I have posted on WUWT before.
cont’d…
“Of the nearly 3200 known naturally occurring organohalogen compounds, more than 1600 contain bromine. These organobromines, which range in structural intricacy from the simple but enormously abundant bromoform (CHBr3) and bromomethane to the highly complex bryozoan bromine-containing indole alkaloids, are produced by marine and terrestrial plants, marine animals (sponges, tunicates, bryozoans, gorgonians, sea hares, nudibranchs), bacteria, fungi, some higher animals, and a few mammals including humans.”
Methyl bromides occur in nature:
“Bromomethane originates from both natural and human sources. In the ocean, marine organisms are estimated to produce 1-2 billion kilograms annually.[2] It is also produced in small quantities by certain terrestrial plants, such as members of the Brassicaceae family. It is manufactured for agricultural and industrial use by reacting methanol with hydrogen bromide:
CH3OH + HBr → CH3Br + H2O”
Broccoli I think.
Bromine content in sea water:
http://oceanplasma.org/documents/Elemental_Table.jpg
Methyl Bromine protects peach orchards:
RUSTON, La. — Peach orchards at Mitcham Farms, near the north Louisiana city of Ruston, have survived winter freezes, droughts and dangerous hail storms. But they evidently will not survive the Environmental Protection Agency and its regulations.
The family-owned business, established in 1946 and featured in tourism magazines, is Louisiana’s largest peach orchard,according to its website, but owner Joe Mitcham expects he’ll close up shop in only a few years.
In 2005, the federal government completed its phase out of a chemical known as methyl bromide, used to control pests in peach trees and other plants. This has given Mitcham no choice but to close, as most of his trees won’t survive without it. In fact, many already have.
The EPA claims using this chemical threatens the earth’s ozone layer and that the U.S. had to discontinue its use because of the Montreal Protocol On Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer and because of the Clean Air Act.
http://dailysignal.com/2014/07/12/epa-regs-likely-kill-68-year-old-louisiana-peach-orchard/
Methyl bromide does indeed threaten the ozone layer, just nor very much. Like CO2 and warming, it is true, just not very effective as a warming agent.
Bromine reacts with cosmic rays to break up ozone. See Prof Lu from Waterloo, and his new book. Most bromine comes from the ocean. Mostly ozone impact happens over the south pole continent. We can make a difference, just not a big one.
Methyl Bromine is a vital fumigant for potato growers:
http://pesticideguy.org/2013/12/31/stopping-the-nematode-threat-to-potatoes-with-fumigation/
Strawberry growers and the recently EPA-outlawed methyl bromide:
“California is the top strawberry growing state producing 2-3 billion pounds per year. California accounts for 20% of the world’s production of strawberries. Since about 1965, approximately 90% of strawberry land in California has been fumigated before each crop is planted. Statewide average strawberry yields tripled following the adoption of fumigation. Generally, the increase in strawberry yield is credited to effective control of the soilborne fungal disease, verticillium wilt, which attacks the water-conducting tissue of the plant. In recent years, the use of fumigants in California has been under intense regulatory review with a phaseout of methyl bromide and use restrictions which could include expanded buffer zones in strawberry fields where fumigation will not be permitted. A recent working group in California assessed the status of nonfumigant alternatives……”
http://pesticideguy.org/2013/07/09/to-remain-viable-california-strawberry-growers-will-need-to-use-fumigants-for-years-to-come/
And it is useful to the human body:
The Latest Essential Element Found – Bromine – Now There are 28
Posted on July 3, 2014 by The Alternative Daily
“There were 27 chemical elements considered essential for human life, but in a new paper published by the journal Cell, researchers from Vanderbilt University say there are now 28, and the latest addition is bromine.
Among the 92 naturally-occurring chemical elements in the universe, bromine has become the 28th element that’s considered essential for tissue development in all animals, including everything from primitive sea creature to human beings.
Vanderbilt Professor of Medicine Billy Hudson, the paper’s senior author, remarked, “without bromine, there are no animals.” The research team showed that fruit flies died when bromine was removed from their diet, but were able to survive when it was restored. Bromine is commonly found in seawater and thought to have the potential to improve the health of patients on dialysis or feeding tubes, according to the researchers.
Prior to this discovery, the element had not been officially designated as essential for humans, but there had been reports of reduced growth, fertility and life expectancy in some animals as a result of hyperthyroidism that was secondary to a diet deficient in bromine.
In humans and animals, bromine has anti-seizure properties and is well-known to be effective in treating hyperthyroid conditions. Many marine plants, kelp in particular, are rich sources of the newly designated essential element. For people with hypothyroidism, the opposite is true, in that foods high in bromine may interfere with thyroid functioning.
While these foods are healthy and nutritious for most people, those with hypothyroidism may want to avoid or consume them in moderation. Foods that contain a significant amount of bromine include:
Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and turnips
Fermented soybean foods including miso, tempeh and yellow soybean paste
Other foods, including peaches, strawberries, pears, peanuts, radishes, spinach, pine nuts, sweet potatoes, bamboo shoots and millet”
The Oscar for claiming the normal as abnormal must go to the producers of the “Making of the Revenant”.
Watched this documentary recently on a long haul flight on one of the world’s leading airlines.
I am aware that the star of the movie – climate hypocrite Leonardo DiCaprio is renowned for scooting around the world in gasoline guzzling private jets, hob nobbing on large diesel powered luxury yachts and collecting big opulent mansions – and then preaching to us all to reduce our carbon footprint. So I guess he might have a hand in the postscript of the doco:
“To-day corporate greed is pushing energy companies further into Canada’s Boreal forest exploiting the wilderness for tar sands displacing the indigenous communities and causing ever worsening heat waves.
Rapid temperature change there forced the film crew to travel to Argentina for find snow. Everywhere people are worried about the future – climate action is the greatest moral imperative of our generation.”
Couldn’t find snow in Canada! My God any-one that can’t find snow in Canada would have trouble finding their pants to get dressed in the morning. The “ever worsening heat waves” wouldn’t have anything to do with the ice eating Chinook wind would it? – most prevalent over Alberta Canada where the film was made.
And I wonder if Leo ever contemplated that it is “corporate greed’ that keeps the fuel flowing for his private jet setting and the powerful engines on the luxury yachts he lolls about on and the heating systems in his opulent mansions?
And I would be amazed if the “displaced” indigenous communities do not benefit in many ways from grants and employment from the “greedy corporations” that are producing oil from the Alberta bitumen deposits.
I am sure that no-one, least of all Justin Trudeau, Canada’s new Prime Minister or any reader of WUWT or any tar oil company wants to see the indiscriminate destruction of the Boreal forest or the rampant exploitation of indigenous communities but like all things in this modern word Leo, there can be balance between nature and human need.
I went to California last year and it was cool, foggy and rained, so I guess me and Leo are even?
Everything global warmers do seems designed to rob us of energy or food, to starve the population of both to limit population growth.
.This the reason for the constant irrational ratcheting of environmental regulation, the “renewable” push, the biofuels push, etc.
The solution is to have a “Its good enough” environmental law. Any new regulations must be cost/benefit positive, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond the margin of error, and must not impair personal freedom. Under this guideline would bromine be regulated?
Misanthropes have found a home in NGOs like Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, Friends of The Earth etc. These people despise Humanity and our prosperity. (Theirs too?)
The FOTE/EOH (Friends of the Earth/Enemies of Humanity) are pretty blunt about their view that there can be wilderness or people but not both, and they prefer wilderness.
Or to paraphrase a Linusism: “They love mankind, its just the people that they can’t stand.”
I was a teenager when the ozone hole scare was broken by the media. Without having any political axe to grind one way or the other, I remember being astonished that there was apparently no interest in the question of whether this hole was new, or had always been there. Or if it was a feature subject to natural variation. “We’ve found it and it must be new and it must be bad.”
In about 30 years they not only developed a measurement method, its natural variability, and the cause of the decline. About one climate cycle. Really well done. /sarc
And if it only occurs over Antarctica, who cares except the penguins?
In Salt Lake City, Utah health officials have reported one person infected with the Zika virus has died. Health officials from Salt Lake County say earlier this year the person had traveled to another country where the virus continues to spread.The patient tested positive for Zika and died in late June. Doctors do not know if the virus contributed to the person’s death. They reported that the person had an underlying medical condition. Add this to the list of Scare.
Is the hole a natural feature of the atmosphere? Documentation is here: https://reality348.wordpress.com/2016/05/14/23-the-dearly-beloved-antarctic-ozone-hole-a-function-of-atmospheric-dynamics/
More background here: https://reality348.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/22-antarctica-the-circulation-of-the-air-in-august/
Anything with Tim Ball as a by line should be summarily dismissed as oil company funded propaganda.
Pseudoenvironmentalists love poisoning the well.
A ridiculous statement.
Anything that comes from tony McLeod is probably a lie and should be printed off and used as butt wipe!
Google it. Tim is quite happy to admit receiving paychecks from Exxon to repeat this sort of guff.
TM, your comment is not cogent to truth in any statement. You fail simple logic.
@Greg and others.
Your comments are as always interesting.
My investigations show that ozone is not only increasing SH but also NH.
the increase/decrease in ozone always looks chaotic, year to year, like the 2003 result that you mention, but over a longer time period, you can always recognize some form of quadratic function or sine wave, like here
If you look carefully, like I did, you will eventually realize that our atmosphere is all the time busy protecting us against the most harmful rays coming from the sun.
There never was a man made ozone hole, just as there is no man made global warming:
Namely, if AGW did exist, there should be some chaos in my graph. There is none. Both maxima and minima are going down, the latter trend being exactly opposite AGW theory.
After some period of investigations I concluded that the drop in global maxima and minima is following the natural curve for the drop in the solar polar magnetic field strengths. It makes sense to think that as those strengths are falling more of the most energetic particles can escape. The atmosphere protects us against those particles by forming more ozone, peroxides and N-oxides. Important for you to remember here is that ozone is not the only component formed TOA. I strongly suspect that peroxides are formed preferentially to ozone if more OH radicals are present. Did anyone ever check the peroxide inside “the hole”?
The time scale for the last half of the current Gleissberg clearly is 1971 – 2014, with global cooling starting exactly in the middle, ca. 1995. (looks like 2014 is when the last double solar pole switch occurred)
to clarify my last comment, here you see the actual solar polar field strengths. Note that to represent the average, for each pole side, you can draw some hyperbola top to bottom and a parabola bottom to top, coming to a dead end stop in ca. 2014
Before that, the last dead end stop must have been around 1971
We are now going to have a “natural 10 year test” of the Ozone over Antarctica and the Arctic. Since the Sun produces the UV that creates Ozone in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, Solar output of UV will be reduced due the the Solar Minimum now taking place. The 10.7 cm Flux is an easy way to measure the Solar UV output. As long as the Flux is less than 80sfu, little Ozone will be produced. Now, it takes about one year for the Ozone layer to stabilize to its new “thickness”. Next year will be the first results of the “test”.
Contrary to published “false predictions”, we will see an enormous expansion of the Ozone hole.
jlurtz says
Solar output of UV will be reduced due the the Solar Minimum now taking place. The 10.7 cm Flux is an easy way to measure the Solar UV output. As long as the Flux is less than 80sfu, little Ozone will be produced
henry says
indeed, as more ozone, peroxides and N-oxides are formed TOA, more UV is deflected off from earth, so less will hit and heat the oceans. If you don’t get this [chemistry] you will never understand the coming global cooling.
I refer to my previous posts to explain.
+1
The warming of the AMO and Arctic region driven by the increase in negative North Atlantic Oscillation conditions since 1995, is a negative feedback to reduced forcing of the climate, and the reverse of what the IPCC models correctly predict, that rising GHG’s will increase positive NAO. That gives a direct measure of how little the increase in CO2 forcing has done to attenuate the effects of declining indirect solar forcings since the mid 1990’s.
Give me a break. The only refuge of the “deniers” is that there is a global conspiracy among scientists. I suggest that all of you spend some time volunteering on an environmental study and get a first hand view. The vast majority of these scientists have extremely high integrity and are reporting their data honestly.
[and you know this firsthand how? You have several screen names here. Luke, CamCam CamCam^2 and now Arctic Observer. this is a violation of site policy (sockpuppeting). You are now on permanent moderation. One doubts your words when you don’t display any integrity yourself. -mod]
I think you might want to do some real research into the world of grant science. You will be astounded at the gross dishonesty.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/08/federal-lab-ignored-environmental-data-manipulation-for-years/
Thanks Dr. Ball for shining a light on this tactic of creating alarm about normal natural processes and patterns. Also your use of the Arctic annual melting is a good example how ordinary events are hyped. It is also widely unappreciated that the Arctic sea ice, lacking a land anchor like Antarctica, should now be imagined as an ice, but rather a swirling kaleidoscope of ice pieces. Of course, each year the vagaries of weather greatly affect the measured ice extents, without any implication from CO2.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/the-great-arctic-ice-exchange/
Whoops. “should not be imagined as an ice cap”
This article is absolute nonsense. The mechanisms for depletion of the ozone catalyzed by CFCs is well understood. The variations that we have seen in the ozone layer are not primarily natural. You seem more concerned with the imprecise terminology (“ozone hole”) than actual science. The models have been valid in that the prediction was that CFCs were predicted to peak in 2015 due to the Montreal Protocols. We should not have to wait for some determination of “normal” to take actions. That is a ridiculous standard. There are a few valid points in your argument, but you ignore them completely:
1) The costs of elimination of CFCs may be higher than the benefit from changes to CFCs. For instance, the availability of refrigeration and air conditioning is a significant benefit to the world. These benefits may outweigh the costs (I don’t agree with this because of CFC alternates — but the argument is valid.)
2) The harm of ozone depletion is exaggerated because the depletion is primarily over polar regions. We could have moved slower to find more cost effective alternates.
3) The political case was made on exaggerated evidence.
If you’re going to write an article like this, you need to cite sources. Without that effort, this sort of rant costs credibility.
@lorcanbonda
I am interested to find out exactly how much peroxide you measured exactly inside the “the ozone hole”.
Perhaps you should go through my previous comments.
Indeed, your comment makes no sense.
If you’re going to write a comment like this, you need to cite sources. Without that effort, this sort of rant costs credibility…..D’oh !
Is that a joke?
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/2014/assessment_for_decision-makers.pdf
“Actions taken under the Montreal Protocol have led to decreases in the atmospheric abundance of controlled ozone-depleting substances (ODSs), and are enabling the return of the ozone layer toward 1980 levels.”
and
“The sum of the measured tropospheric abundances of substances controlled under the Montreal
Protocol continues to decrease. Most of the major controlled ODSs are decreasing largely as projected, and
hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and halon-1301 are still increasing. Unknown or unreported sources of carbon tetrachloride are needed to explain its abundance.”
“Total column ozone declined over most of the globe during the 1980s and early 1990s (by about 2.5% averaged over 60°S to 60°N). It has remained relatively unchanged since 2000, with indications of a small increase in total column ozone in recent years, as expected. In the upper stratosphere there is a clear recent ozone increase, which climate models suggest can be explained by comparable contributions from declining ODS abundances and upper stratospheric cooling caused by carbon dioxide increases.”
Dear Lorcanbonda,
Search for my comment above on the plausible existence of a natural convector of sea salt particles to the low stratosphere, where UV dissociates the salt into sodium and chlorine. Chlorine is the ozone-depletion actor, after all. We don’t need CFCs to play the villain exclusively. Who knows how much of the chlorine comes naturally from the ocean? (Note: There is a sodium layer in the atmosphere; must have come from somewhere.)
There are also volcanic emissions of HF, HCl, and HBr. If hot, dry volcanic gas ascends to the stratosphere, there is little opportunity for atmospheric water to wash any of this away. It can also hitch a ride on ash particles, which can reach these altitudes.
You seem to have the attitude that everything can be known a priori and laboratory work trumps natural observations. That would make you a poor astronomer or naturalist… Possibly even a poor archaeologist…
The rant is yours…..
“The mechanisms for depletion of the ozone catalyzed by CFCs is well understood”…..in the laboratory.
“The variations that we have seen in the ozone layer are not primarily natural.” How can that be proven? There is considerable evidence for naturally occurring CFC’s.
“The models have been valid in that the prediction was that CFCs were predicted to peak in 2015 due to the Montreal Protocols.”
So did CFC’s peak in 2015? How does anyone know? CFC reporting is as much subject to error as is CO2 emission reporting. It can be anything anyone wants it to be, like Chinese CO2.
Because CFC’s are also classed as greenhouse gases, their destruction qualified under the UN Clean Development Mechanism, CDM. A report in 2010 pointed out that some plants produced CFC’s in order to then destroy them and claim Certificates of Emission Reduction, (CER) under the CDM. “CDM Watch, an NGO, showed the most lucrative projects in the CDM, chemical plants that destroyed HFC-23, may have inflated their emissions in order to destroy them and sell more offsets.”
The UNFCCC CDM provided funding for the destruction of HFC-23 from HCFC-22 produced in developing countries from 2003 and such countries as China became the largest producers of HCFC-22 in the ensuing years. http://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/un-halts-carbon-credits-to-chinese-hfc-plants/
I doubt that was accounted for in the models, which you claim have been valid.
HFC22 was scheduled in the 1987 Montreal Protocol for phasing out in industrialised countries by 2030, although developing countries were allowed to expand production until 2015 and only stop producing the gases in 2040. This is the “contract and converge mechanism” in action again, as with CO2 emissions. If these gases are so dangerous, why can they be produced for another 23 years?
” “The mechanisms for depletion of the ozone catalyzed by CFCs is well understood”…..in the laboratory.”
Yes, that is correct.
” “The variations that we have seen in the ozone layer are not primarily natural.” How can that be proven? There is considerable evidence for naturally occurring CFC’s.” — it doesn’t need to be “proven”. That is an unreasonable standard. Claiming that since we can’t ‘prove it’ means that we can never develop a reasonable estimate are not the same thing.
“So did CFC’s peak in 2015? How does anyone know? CFC reporting is as much subject to error as is CO2 emission reporting. It can be anything anyone wants it to be, like Chinese CO2.” — it depends, but I would like to see some numbers for this. That being said — this article references a different article where we claim just that.
“Because CFC’s are also classed as greenhouse gases, their destruction qualified under the UN Clean Development Mechanism, CDM. A report in 2010 pointed out that some plants produced CFC’s in order to then destroy them and claim Certificates of Emission Reduction, (CER) under the CDM. … .” –>This is a non-sequitor. Just because there are unscrupulous and unethical people does not mean that the science is wrong.
“I doubt that was accounted for in the models, which you claim have been valid.” I didn’t actually claim the models were valid. I pointed out that their prediction was that they were supposed to peak in 2015 seems to be validated by the article that this one references. I agree with you that we should be seeing more scientific measurements that confirm the validity and changes to any predictions.
That being said, the ‘model’ for CFCs is a much simpler model than that for the carbon dioxide and the climate. It is simply a comparison of buildup of CFCs in the stratosphere and consumption rates through reactions. We do this same modeling in every chemical reaction in chemical manufacturing plants in the nation. CO2 is a different story because the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere has multiple pathways.
My point is that an article like this lack credibility. Without credibility, the author should consider everything they write as suspect.
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050228/full/news050228-12.html
The biggest problem is not whether CFC’s play a role but the weighting given and presentation that magnifies the role of CFS’s much higher than what can be proven and ignores powerful natural causes/variability that clearly are there.
Let’s be clear. Scientists are identifying natural causes as in those from the link above but when valuable studies/research comes forth, it never gets dialed into the mix for the public and others to discern, with the weighting it deserves scientifically because the gate keepers of information and propaganda, don’t want the political message to get distorted.
Exactly the same with CO2.
How much weighting does the planet greening up get?
Record smashing crop yields/world food production?
Massive benefits to most life on the planet?
Decrease in violent tornadoes, tropical cyclone energy, global drought?
Best weather/climate in 1,000 years, since the Medieval Warm Period?
Instead, we only here about bad things, which are exaggerated because the gate keepers of the information, spin data/facts to support a political message not a scientific one.
With climate science today, If you question those exaggerations and facts, even using authentic science/empirical data, you are labelled a “denier”. The scientific method always embraces skeptics. They provide opportunities to those with speculative theories to prove their theories.
A scientist with an authentic theory that is questioned, does not just call others “deniers” who are skeptical…………and expect that to be the end of it(science is settled/debate is over).
They MUST prove the theory beyond a reasonable doubt. The point of contention of course is, what qualifies as “reasonable doubt”.
The lack of skill in global climate models and one sided framing of a beneficial gas, CO2(as pollution) clearly disqualifies the parties focusing on those elements as being objective enough to evaluate what “reasonable doubt” realities are.
And as a GE refrigeration engineer (who was livid at GE management for agreeing to the scare) told me: the patent on freon was just about to run out when the Montreal Protocol went into effect. The patent was held by DuPont, the very folks with the patent on the “clean” (but inferior) replacement for freon!
Patents on CFCs and HCFCs were long since expired. Most came from the 1920s and 30s, with some azeotropes for low temps concocted in WW2 to replace ammonia (toxic and flammable) on ships.
The ozone hole CFC conspiracy theory is all crap. First, there’s half the amount of ozone in the South Pole than global average because the thickness of the stratosphere at the poles is half the global average. Generally there’s half the number of gas molecules whether they are nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide or ozone. Now our hairsprays didn’t cause the thinner polar stratosphere, that would mean our hairsprays also deformed earth from being a perfect sphere.
Second, why is CFC selectively destroying the ozone in the South Pole but not the North Pole? Because the stratospheric winds in the southern hemisphere are less effective in transporting ozone from the mid latitudes. Our hairsprays didn’t alter the southern hemisphere wind patterns.
Third, South Pole has half the ozone but also gets less than half solar radiation than the equator. So you get more UV radiation at the equator than the South Pole. 250 million Indonesians don’t mind the UV but environmentalists are scared the ice sheet in Antarctica might get sunburn or skin cancer.