Guest post by Tony Brown,
The Ozone Hole returns to both Poles
Some years ago, relating to a project I was carrying out, I asked the Max Planck Institute and Cambridge University –both experts in this field-if it were possible that Antarctic ‘ozone hole’ -actually a ‘thinning’ – existed prior to it being first ‘discovered’ in 1957.
Prior to that date the apparatus did not exist in any convenient form that could measure the likely extent of any hole, should it have existed. This is the official explanation;
“The springtime Antarctic ozone hole is a new phenomenon that appeared in the early 1980s.
The observed average amount of ozone during September, October, and November over the British Antarctic Survey station at Halley, Antarctica, first revealed notable decreases in the early 1980s, compared with the preceding data obtained starting in 1957. The ozone hole is formed each year when there is a sharp decline (currently up to 60%) in the total ozone over most of Antarctica for a period of about three months (September-November) during spring in the Southern Hemisphere. Late-summer (January-March) ozone amounts show no such sharp decline in the 1980s and 1990s. “
https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/research/ozone-uv/moreinfo?view=antarctic-ozone-hole
Both organisations I approached agreed it was theoretically possible the hole could have existed prior to 1957, but thought it unlikely, as it was proven that refrigerants and other man- made chemicals were the cause of the thinning and it must therefore be a recent problem, as the circumstances that caused it did not exist in the past.
.In 2019 there was a considerable amount of press and government comment that the ‘Hole’ was ‘healing,’ as it was unusually small, said to be due to actions taken by global governments in 1987 who signed the Montreal protocol ;
“The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is the landmark multilateral environmental agreement that regulates the production and consumption of nearly 100 man-made chemicals referred to as ozone depleting substances (ODS). When released to the atmosphere, those chemicals damage the stratospheric ozone layer, Earth’s protective shield that protects humans and the environment from harmful levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Adopted on 15 September 1987, the Protocol is to date the only UN treaty ever that has been ratified every country on Earth – all 197 UN Member States.”
https://www.unenvironment.org/ozonaction/who-we-are/about-montreal-protocol
A year on however, there was this surprising announcement from the World Meteorological Organisation, made on 6 October 2020;
“2020 Antarctic ozone hole is large and deep”
“There is much variability in how far ozone hole events develop each year. The 2020 ozone hole resembles the one from 2018, which also was a quite large hole, and is definitely in the upper part of the pack of the last fifteen years or so”, Vincent-Henri Peuch, Director of Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service at ECMWF, said in a news release.
“With the sunlight returning to the South Pole in the last weeks, we saw continued ozone depletion over the area. After the unusually small and short-lived ozone hole in 2019, which was driven by special meteorological conditions, we are registering a rather large one again this year, which confirms that we need to continue enforcing the Montreal Protocol banning emissions of ozone depleting chemicals.”
The Montreal Protocol bans emissions of ozone depleting chemicals. Since the ban on halocarbons, the ozone layer has slowly been recovering; the data clearly show a trend in decreasing area of the ozone hole.”
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/2020-antarctic-ozone-hole-large-and-deep
The size of the 2019 hole is now seen as not being part of a welcome downwards trend that was proving the effectiveness of global measures, but as an ‘unusual’ event. The hole is expected to revert to its ‘natural’ condition by the middle decades of this century. Data on the progression of the ‘hole’ since 1979 can be seen in the left hand panel of this link
https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/
The Hole in the Arctic Ozone.
After researching further I note that earlier this year the Arctic hole was the largest on record, according to Nature magazine and Scientific American, exciting and concerning scientists. It was driven by exceptionally cold winter temperature. From “Nature”
Rare ozone hole opens over Arctic — and it’s big” ( 27 March 2020)
“Cold temperatures and a strong polar vortex allowed chemicals to gnaw away at the protective ozone layer in the north.
A vast ozone hole — probably the biggest on record in the north — has opened in the skies above the Arctic. It rivals the better-known Antarctic ozone hole that forms in the southern hemisphere each year.
Record-low ozone levels currently stretch across much of the central Arctic, covering an area about three times the size of Greenland (see ‘Arctic opening’). The hole doesn’t threaten people’s health, and will probably break apart in the coming weeks. But it is an extraordinary atmospheric phenomenon that will go down in the record books.
“From my point of view, this is the first time you can speak about a real ozone hole in the Arctic,” says Martin Dameris, an atmospheric scientist at the German Aerospace Center in Oberpfaffenhofen.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00904-w
“After looming above the Arctic for nearly a month, the single largest ozone hole ever detected over the North Pole has finally closed, researchers from the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reported.
“The unprecedented 2020 Northern Hemisphere ozone hole has come to an end,” CAMS researchers tweeted on April 23.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/north-poles-largest-ever-ozone-hole-finally-closes/
The Montreal protocol was seen as the global template for the Kyoto protocol on CO2 emissions adopted in 1997 and which entered into force in 2005 and the subsequent Paris agreement, a global attempt to curb CO2 emissions and limit temperature rises to 1.5C above pre industrial. Like the ozone hole, CO2 emissions seem surprisingly robust and any reduction in its rate of increase following the sharpest lockdown on human activity since the industrial revolution is difficult to discern at present.
Sept 2020 411.29ppm
Sept 2019 408.54ppm
Updated 6th October 2020
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/mlo.html
There is a useful link from here entitled “Can we see a change in the record because of covid19” indicating that “The International Energy Agency expects global CO2 emissions to drop by 8% this year. Clearly, we cannot see a global effect like that in less than a year.”
Only time will tell if Man’s culpability in both these important areas is greater or lesser than currently thought.
Tony Brown (tonyb) October 2020
Thanks, Tony.
Regards,
Bob
PS: Stay safe and healthy, all.
Okay so this basically disproves that it was primarily CFCs that caused the Antarctic ozone hole. I always thought it was weird that they only manifested themselves over Antarctica in the coldest part of the year. Can we at least put CFCs back into medical propellants so that they actually work as well as they once did?
Doesn’t anybody in “science” look at where the Ozone comes from? I’m just an old pilot who has studied weather because I need to understand it to fly safely. When I research atmospheric ozone, all the sources I find say it comes from the “discharge of high voltage electricity in the atmosphere”, i.e. breaking down the O2 into Ozone. The high voltage comes from lightening which comes from thunderstorms. Since the polar regions are too cold for thunderstorms to form, there isn’t any ozone being generated there. DUH, if there are no thunderstorms there to generate ozone, there should be a hole in that layer at that location. The ozone in those regions is “imported” from regions where there are thunderstorms.
The other thing most people forget, or never thought about, is that the Earth at the Equator is spinning over 1,000 MPH. Yet at the poles the air isn’t moving hardly at all. So the turbulence in the atmosphere moves things around.
I suspect this ozone story is like the “glow bull warming” story, “much ado about nothing, as Shakespeare said.
C. Earl Jantzi,
I remember in Chemistry class being taught that Ozone (O3) was formed in the upper atmosphere by Cosmic Rays1 , Ultraviolet Light, or Alpha Particles from the Sun, bumping into Oxygen molecules (O2) according to the equation 3O2⇋ 2O3, a reversible reaction.
Reactive and unstable, Ozone decays pretty soon, back into O2 or an oxide of Nitrogen (NOx), there being plenty of Nitrogen around up there.
So imagine my surprise when I learned that in America Ozone is believed to come from automobile exhaust pipes in places like Los Angeles.
When, in the ‘80s a sharp eyed New York Times reporter first spotted the ‘Ozone Hole’ lurking over Patagonia in late October, I was curious. When, every year thereafter, the ‘Ozone Hole’ reappeared at the same time and place as reported in the NYT, I became suspicious.
Now it was common knowledge among my classmates that our schoolmasters were Neanderthals, nevertheless to avoid being caned we paid attention, (A.D.D. having not yet been invented). We also knew from paying attention that the Antarctic, being a continent, was 30 degs. C, or more, colder than the Arctic which is an ocean.
With no sunlight for six months there are no ‘Cosmic Rays’ to generate fresh ozone over Antarctica. In addition the cold dense polar air mass descends over the South Pole and heads North in every direction creating the hurricane force katabatic winds. The Earth’s rotation or Coriolis effect, take your pick, gives the Northbound wind an Easterly kick and voila! the South Polar vortex is born, giving rise to the roaring forties, or screaming fifties depending how far south you go. All of this sucks more of the remaining ozone out of the upper atmosphere.
When in September, spring in the antipodes, the Sun pops its smiling face over the horizon to warm things up, relatively speaking, again the polar vortex weakens and the ozone depleted winter air mass spirals Northward to show up in Patagonia on cue for the annual October/November Ozone hole spotting!
To panic about the disappearing ‘ozone hole’, our shield against cancer causing UV radiation, seems strange given that UV radiation is absorbed in the process by creating the Ozone layer.
The energy needed to create the highly reactive Ozone molecule from the standard O2 Oxygen molecule reduces the high energy UV to a lower energy state with a corresponding longer and less harmful wavelength according to the formula E= H/λ, where E is ‘Energy’, λ is wavelength ( lambda) and H is Plank’s constant.
Cheers, from one old pilot to another,
Mike
Mike, you and Earl are nuts!! no body cares about facts or truth!!
Anthony & Moderators: Twice today, while READING the site, not clicking on anything, I have been suddenly redirected to a website saying my McAfee subscription (which I don’t have) has expired. I don’t know if anyone else has seen this, but you might want to check on what ads are being displayed to be sure there’s no malware.
(I have been getting them too, will pass this on to Anthony and Charles) SUNMOD
Happened to me several times also.
Oh, I’m based in the UK, if that matters
That’s happened to me on a couple of sites. The only way I can get rid of it is to close the window and re-enter the site.
Try using the Brave browser.
https://brave.com/
I use Brave for all sites and don’t have any problems.
There is an option to leave Brave Shields down on a site, which means any ads etc don’t get blocked. Normally I leave the shields up, but Shields are down for WUWT, so Anthony gets the revenue from the ads.
Oops, response should have been here:
Oh, I’m based in the UK, if that matters
opened every link.. no problems.
I keep getting redirected to a site asking me to update firefox.
This only with firefox.
started about week ago.
Had similar problem about a year ago.
OK, hate to open this particular can of worms, seems necessary at this juncture. Don’t do anything or go anywhere on the internet without good ad blocking.
But it isn’t actually Firefox – the ‘first part’ of the address when that happens (it started happening to me about a week or so ago) is this:
https://getbestakamaitheclicks.best/2CTtvU0z-FciGQyxBCO . . . .(there is a LOT more of the ‘random characters . )
I don’t know if it is something in essence ’embeded’ in the web page, or what ; i just click ‘go back a page’ , which it does just fine; and obviously NEVER click on anything on that page . . .
wow, and TODAY, it WAS different – it made it look like it was McAfee – but again, the ‘website’ was this . .
https://securetoday.org/mcafee/alert/?cep=zmUaG6RetzwY . . . . (plus a huge string of the ‘random’ characters . . .
. . .interesting what might be doing this . . .
Just got my first Norton version.
Also a few weeks ago, I was getting banner t the top of the screen asking me someting abut rights management.
Same here
I get both McAfee and Norton jumping in.
I though that crook was finally behind bars.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/06/john-mcafee-antivirus-software-pioneer-charged-with-tax-evasion-in-us
I have also had problems accessing this site. Since Oct 1st the site crashed my browser and could not be accessed on the 1st, 4th , 5th and 7th. The site appears to load but at about the time that the article has loaded and ads are loading the browser crashes. Attempted retries fail. It’s an old machine (Mac G5) running a specially compiled version of Mozilla (TenFourFox). The problems are probably bad Java code or attempting to access some browser extension that’s not in TenFourFox.
I have also had 2 occasions during the same period, on dates when the site was accessible, where I was directed to what appeared to be the google search page (“I’m feeling lucky”) with no apparent action on my part. This happened soon after the front page loaded and does not repeat after I page back to WUWT. I do not trigger the search.
This behavior only occurs at WUWT and has happened twice this year. I dismissed it as problems with running a 14 year old computer until I saw TonyG’s post.
The site appears to be trouble free on an iPad Air 3rd Gen running up to date system and Firefox browser software with ‘enhanced tracking protection’ turned on.
I regularly receive phishing emails asking me to renew McAfee (or update my information for non-extant bank, ISP or CC accounts). I do not open them in my email client but in a text editor that can’t download or execute any enclosed malware.
I can keep it from happening by stopping the page from loading (the little x in the url window) on Safari. Paranoid that I am, i’m assuming that this is a deliberate attack on WUWT.
The problem returned today (10/11/20) a couple minutes before this post. I’m posting from my iPad.
I too am suspicious that WUWT is under some sort of attack using some maliciously crafted ad code. Normally I wouldn’t feel that way but the tactics of ‘the other side’ plus the fact that no other web site I visit has the same problem leads me to that possibility. The fact that not everybody is affected argues against or indicates that ‘they’ haven’t crafted malicious enough code (yet).
This may be a case where ‘Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to carelessness.’ is reversed.
Ghostery add-on on my Firefox stops these issues on my PC/Win10. In the ghostery list I do allow wordpress stats tracker, but nothing else.
This kind of thing is a fairly common experience for me. It seems to depend on what server my computer is accessing. When I am traveling, I notice a significant increase in leftist areas of the country. If I’m within about 50 miles of a university, it can be a real mess. WUWT is not the only site this kind of thing happens to. I like to visit sites like whatfinger and citizens free press and others the leftists don’t like. It can be a common occurrence on those sites, also. It was a frequent occurrence on drudge, until drudge turned to the left.
Happened to me too with Norton.
This happens to me several times a day. Always soon after opening a new article.
If I am on Firefox, I get a fake Firefox update message. Sometimes on Edge I have gotten a fake Edge update or an Adobe Flash update. A couple of times yesterday I got a 404 error on some weird coupon clipping site with a very entertaining moving star-field background.
Often fake McAfee, Symantec and others show a page that notifies me that my anti-virus is out of date. Some entertainingly pretend to be doing scans and finding all kinds of malware. Often they are accompanied by loud audio tones.
I’m not getting this on any other site. Looks like a cyber-attack of some kind. Probably you could kill it with ad-blockers but I do want to allow the site to be monetized by ads.
Needless to say, never click on any of these antics. Close the tab and restart, eventually you will get through.
I get it both on Firefox and on Safari running the latest Mac OS.
I don’t run/have installed McAfee, or Norton-Symantic Antivirus, or Adobe’s Flash malware. Those re-directs that we are getting are to sites doctored up to look like the real sites. They are not. They will install Trojan horse spamware and malware and viruses on your computer if you let them (give them the permissions with clicks).
Because Anthony’s WUWT is an HTTPS secure host, the only way this can be happening is if Anthony’s hosting service is compromised by employee SJWs acting as hackers employed at those hacks to the redirects.
Malicious attemots to install malware on your computer. Simoly close the page/tab, and re-eneter the site. It’s been happening for almost a week now.
Anthony has lots of cyber-eco enemies in cyber space due to this WUWT blog. The web stats show this WUWT is widely viewed everyday.
Odd. Joel, what’s your setup? I’m Cox as the ISP, FireFox (latest) as the browser, Avast as security. I’ve had NONE of this wave hit me.
Just to provide some additional data, I have not seen any such activity in many months. It used to be on my old iPhone 6 that similar things happened (usually I had been selected to win a fantastic prize). But that was about 2 years ago.
On Windows 10 computers, I have never encountered this (Trend Micro AV). But interestingly, I don’t get any threat warnings either.
Instead of opening the full post directly, try doing so in a new tab.
This seems to be working for me. Limited experience.
McAfee should be sued or hit with a short heavy stick on the side of the head.
I have not had any problems. I use Firefox, always use private browsing mode which deletes all cache and site data when browser closes, custom security that blocks unvisited website cookies, all trackers, all cryptominers and fingerprinters. I have Advanced Tracking Protection turned on . I have uninstalled all Microsoft browsers and removed Chrome from my start up menu. After the few times I must use Chrome for a certain financial website, I clear the temp files and cache.
Happens also with Apple Safari. Without touching anything, a page pops up that cannot be closed. I have to close Safari entirely and start over. It sometimes occurs repeatedly, sometimes only once in a session. I clear cookies and history after this occurs, but that does not appear to stop it. This has been happening for more than a year, but rarely and sporadically. I sometimes get a vague sense that it may occur upon trying to view certain politically sensitive topics.
I have also recently been receiving occasional error messages when posting comments, so much so that now I always save a copy before posting so that it is not lost.
TonyG wrote, “Twice today, while READING the site, not clicking on anything, I have been suddenly redirected…”
That has not happened to me. I am using Chrome, on Windows 10. I have uBlock Origin (ad blocker) installed, but it’s not currently enabled for WUWT.
If it is happening to you, the culprit might be a 3rd party “extension” or “add-on” installed in your web browser. (Beware of sites which want to install extensions for things which should not require extensions, like finding recipes, maps & directions, etc.)
To see what Chrome extensions you have installed and enabled:
⋮ ⇒ More tools ⇒ Extensions
Then disable or remove any extensions that you aren’t sure you need.
Alternately, you can reset the Chrome browser, like this:
⋮ ⇒ Settings ⇒ Advanced ⇒ Reset and clean up ⇒ Restore settings to their original defaults
I use Firefox less frequently, but within Firefox if you click ☰ then ⍰ Help, there’s an option to “Restart with Add-ons disabled” (what they used to call “safe mode”). If that gets rid of the symptom, then the culprit is probably an extension that you have installed.
Find a good replacement “hosts” file for your pc.
Then donate to websites that you appreciate, because they will not get ad income.
I’ve done that for many years. It helps because I test it — back up my custom host file then delete it from the OS file system and restart the network. Browsing is then loaded w/ads & crap that I hadn’t seen before & pages take much longer to load. I download my custom hosts file from here:
https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/blob/master/readme.md
My computer came with McAfee on it, I use another anti virus program but now get the same message.
Thanks everyone for the extra info, and for the tips – I use firefox and disable ad blocking on WUWT. There are some other sites where I disable it as well, and it ONLY happens here. I’m very aware of how to stay protected – I used to be a network admin and I’m a programmer by day, I keep my systems pretty locked down and clean – it’s definitely not on my end.
Just wanted to make sure someone was aware, which appears to be the case. If it’s something being snuck in by an ad, they should be able to do something about it.
I have been getting occasional 409 errors.
This has been happening to me at this site for a few days. Not sure if it originates at WATTS or is caused by something in my browser.
One more small data point: ad blocker ON, it stops happening. So almost certainly sneaking in through an ad.
It is obvious to me that nobody knows the causes of the dynamics of ozone variations. They can only pretend they do, else the litigation lawyers would have a field day given the costs of all those measures to reduce ODSs. On any objective measure the return of the hole just shows we have been told porkies.
Agree 100% Ed.
There are way too many political organizations masquerading as scientific ones.
The most likely explanation is BOTH – it’s natural to some extent, and also made worse by CFCs etc.
As with global warming, it’s more likely it’s natural, and also made worse by human activities to some extent.
It’s the extent of human contribution that’s the issue.
IF CFCs play no role the ozone hole, which is my contention, then it’s a poor, wrong, bad assumption to say CFCs make the ozone depletion issue worse. There is zero evidence that CFCs play any role whatsoever in the formation of the polar ozone holes. So why should we invent a bad assumption and then insist it’s true? This is exactly the same mistake we make when we blame CO2 for “trapping heat” in the atmosphere.
The mechanics of the formation of the ozone hole are already known. Free oxygen radicals are depleted during the dark cold winter, as they bond with other molecular oxygen molecules to create O2. But fewer molecular O molecules are created due to a lack of UV, so over the course of the polar night, O radicals only reduce, and are not replaced except by mixing with other air masses moving from lower latitudes. And when it is extremely cold, the tropopause collapses and lowers, meaning even the stratosphere’s oxygen radicals can be depleted too. When the sun finally rises in the spring, the UV starts to break apart the remaining ozone molecules, which cannot begin to reform until enough oxygen radicals are created by breaking apart O2 molecules, and these radicals can mix and spread around due to convection. The Antarctic ozone hole is always bigger because the Antarctic is sheltered from mixing due to the circumpolar currents. The ozone hole is completely natural. Stop worrying about it. Montreal Protocols were stupid, senseless, misguided, expensive and gained humans nothing.
Could the thinning be related to solar cycles?
Only partly.
“A significant fraction of the ozone variance during the past decade is also due to solar forcing (Figure 3.1). The ozone content of the middle atmosphere varies with the 11-year solar cycle because the solar radiation and particle environment responsible for creating and destroying ozone varies. Superimposed on the long term downward ozone trend deduced from TOMS data during the past 11 years is a solar cycle variation whose amplitude is estimated to be 1.8 percent ± 0.3 percent (Hood and McCormack, 1992). These solar-related changes in ozone exacerbated the downward anthropogenic trend from 1982 to 1986 (the descending phase of the solar activity cycle) and masked it almost completely during 1988–1991 (the ascending phase of the cycle).”
https://www.nap.edu/read/4778/chapter/5#51
More solar activity => More ozone
The decrease in solar activity can partly explain that there is less ozone.
Anyone familiar with O3 and how it is formed will not be concerned. Has anyone seen any research into Sunspot activity and O3? it would be interesting.<:o)
Is this something that is going to produce another panic attack of pronouncements from the Greenbeaners and ecohippies?
They don’t seem to have much understanding of natural processes, and I don’t want them showing up on my doorstep asking me to show them how to cook soy-based fake meat over a campfire.
I just like to be prepared for it, that’s all.
(not directed at anyone in particular on this site, just a general lament…)
I still cannot fathom how utterly dumb and ignorant so many persons are regards the non issue of polar “ozone holes”! Back when it was all the rage (1990’s) I did some simple investigation myself, as I never believe things on faith, but rather seek out the source or principle which so called “crises” are perpetrated upon.
Ask yourself (and do the diligence in finding out the answer): “how is stratospheric ozone produced”? Well you can find the answer in many easily available textbooks (remember there wasn’t a widely available internet circa 1990) – that is stratospheric ozone is formed by sunlight (specifically UV) impinging upon O2 molecules in the upper atmosphere. The high energy UV photons cleave the O2, and the highly reactive and unstable monatomic oxygen binds with nearby O2 to form O3.
And O3 then forms a blocking layer for UV, thus making earth more habitable for all life as we know it.
The key here is, it is a natural process – driven by the UV from the sun. O3 is also unstable and decays spontaneously – if it is not continuously being generated by the solar UV it’s concentration will decline.
Now when is the Antarctic ozone hole observed? Duhhhh, in late winter/early spring – WHEN THE ANTARCTIC HAS BEEN IN THE DARK FOR 6 MONTHS! (hence concentrations decline as no new O3 is being generated)
Combine this nasty little fact with the fact that the Antarctic upper wind pattern is strange, in that it circulates at the pole, with very little mixing to higher latitudes – and you have a freaking natural phenomenon! Not some man made catastrophe!
OK, so it is highly likely the “hole” is a natural phenom, but let’s find some other nails to put in that crisis coffin:
Supposedly, CFC’s migrate to the upper stratosphere and cause O3 to break down. No such migration has ever been measured – only modeled by the way… But forget about that for a moment. The argument was the UV breaks down the CFC and free Chlorine atoms are supposedly the magic bullets that destroy the Ozone….
Hmmm, how much do the outdoor swimming pools in just North America – how much Chlorine to these emit into the atmosphere – I asked myself. So I looked it up.
Turns out it is more chlorine than the entire world’s release of CFC’s over a year. I see, so we’ve banned a completely benign, non toxic, non flammable refrigerant gas, yet we still pump more chlorine into the atmo – from N America’s swimming pools (not to mention all the industrial sources, or drinking water treatment in the whole world) than would have been released by CFC’s
And we replaced the CFC’s with an ongoing litany of ever more worse refrigerants – each incarnation after a ban is less efficient, and makes refrigeration systems less efficient/reliable, thus needing to be larger, and less safe as some are now even based on propane (the YF1234 in new cars for example are explosive in accidents, and can release HF in the combustion of YF1234 which can cause irreparable damage if inhaled).
And get this, all spray cans used to use inert, non flammable CFC’s as propellants – and what did the asinine green hippies replace this with? Raw propane and butane – to this day!
Raw hydrocarbons cause all kinds of ground level pollution, and ironically ground level ozone. Not to mention how extremely flammable all spray cans are now.
This whole ozone fiasco was an exercise in brainwashing and nonsense. And of course industry was more than happy to ignore real science, and jump on the green bandwagon, because inventing new refrigerants every decade or so, with new patents, and ever increasing costs – and refrigeration systems lasting half the time due to increased operating pressures, means you as an industrialist, get to make gazillions more dollars off the green scam!
Thanks very much for your lucid and accurate explanation for the non-problem of those holes above the Antarctic and Arctic. They have almost certainly existed before history record them but were only ‘found’ when circumstances were appropriate.
The commercial patentes for the production of refrigeration gas expired after 50 years, i.e. Dec 1992. When was the Montreal Conference? !992. Coincidence? I think not…
Valid points. Not entirely sure that novel halogen compounds haven’t made the ozone depletion worse but I certainly agree that the hole is natural and must have existed (to some extent) before we found it.
Two additional points:
1) If chlorine affects ozone creation then the abundance that comes from seawater that is blown into the upper atmosphere should be considered. That is entirely natural.
2) The negative impact of a “ozone hole” is that harmful UV rays can reach the surface. But surely that is not the impact of a thinner ozone layer. If light can now pass through the thinner ozone layer it will reach the denser atmosphere below. Which still has O2 in it. So the ozone will just form nearer the surface. The hole in the ozone layer is really a lowering of the ozone layer with the “thinness” being observed at the old height. We are over-looking the ozone, literally.
Colder air will also be much denser and therefore shrink. So the atmosphere will have even less thickness over an already 2 miles high ice pack.
UVC lamps are becoming ever more popular for disinfecting viruses. They create ozone you can smell in their vicinity when UVC hits O2 breaking it in to O and O which seek out other O2 molecules to become O3 molecules.
So Bill Gates or Elon Musk should give up on sending dust particles up in the sky to block sunlight… and instead send UVC lamps up there powered by red Tesla convertibles in very low orbits over the poles. Problem solved. Send me a new computer and a red convertible for the idea please.
When I clicked “post comment” for the above… I got one of those damn McAfee windows. I x’d it out and also lost the WUWT thread. Annoying.
Chrome with none of the Norton “extensions” enabled. I don’t enable extensions on any browser. Should I? Most people consider them more harmful than helpful.
As impolite as it may be I run extra security, addons mainly. Protect yourself, no one else will.
Seems a problem many appear to be having with WUWT lately – see my post elsewhere in the responses. Some sort of malware sneaking in to the site. I suspect its embedded in the ads.
” I suspect its embedded in the ads.” Which is why I run the best ad blockers I can. Have a banner on bottom of page at BBC, cnn, fox, drudge, zerohedge, etc etc telling to me turn off ad blockers, I email each of them at least once a week telling them no. Until these attacks through ads are brought to an end I will simply keep ramping up security on all my devices.
And yes, Mr Watt, I do help out, have purchased several books from your righthand side bar and donate through paypal, not sure how paypal lists me, have to use full name but don’t know if they list me by usename on each site.
Thank you, Mr Courtney, for adding to the ‘hole’ theory of O3.
As Richard Feynman observed, in another context, ‘Nature cannot be fooled’.
I remember that December 2010 was exceptionally cold and all the ice and snow covering the whole northern hemisphere looked like the ice sheet had returned, viewed from satellite. By mid-Jan. when the cold had gone we were told (in Feb.) there had been a dangerous thinning of the ozone layer over the NH but this was now thickening up again. Cold was not mentioned at all, of course, but this happening was quite enough evidence for me to say it’s all natural.
Well said
Nice, thank you!
Thank you, I just posted something similar but perhaps less persuasive in reply to a comment upthread. I should always read all the way through the comments before ranting.
They never left, they just stopped serving “their” purpose for a while, now theys be back! LAWDY LAWDY wes all be doooomned!!!!!!!!!! Don’t be a throwin’ me that thar briarbatch!(so sick of these leftist f***kers)
Just as likely we need to sacrifice a number of oxen to ward off the depredations of Moloch and Mephistopheles who have been particulate active this year.
PARTICULARLY
Damn auto-corrupt!
Clever.
Couldn’t we just sacrifice a certain number of politic worms instead of oxen?
I mean, really, what did oxen do to deserve that, anyway?
Oxen are a form of wealth, or at least useful enablers of increased productivity. Think of farmers’ tractors. Tossing a few pols into the fire would be the direct opposite of a sacrifice for everyone except the pols …
It’s a great idea that is worthy of consideration on its own merits, but as Steve pointed out, it’s hardly a sacrifice.
Looking at the numbers presented here, even with the economic lockdown that has damaged so many economies around the world, including that of the USA, I don’t think the International Energy Agency is going to make their 8% decrease prediction for 2020. Hey, just sayin’ . . .
It sounds like one of us is misunderstanding Larry. It’s not an 8% decrease in atmospheric CO2 that is being discussed. That would be (an impossible?) drop to about 385ppm. It’s an 8% drop in the current year fossil fuel emissions compared to the prior year. That minor reduction is an amount way too low to impact atmospheric concentration outside of the normal range of variation.
What numbers are you talking about that give you evidence that fossil fuel emissions in 2020 are not 8% lower than 2019?
What chemical and/or atmospheric processes lead CFCs released primarily in the Northern hemisphere to create ozone “holes” at the poles and nowhere else? Why wouldn’t the ozone thinning be much more uniform throughout the stratosphere? Also, if we could not measure or detect ozone thinning prior to 1957, how can we know what is normal or even if there is such a thing?
Exactly, Clue. Most of the CFC producing industries are in the northern hemisphere, yet there is always a concern with the south pole…
There’s a lot of O2 all around the globe. The sun’s rays hit the atmosphere at a high angle of incidence around the equator generating lots of O3, and they hit at a shallow angle at the poles, generating less O3. This amazing phenomenon seems to also be a reason that it’s really cold at the poles.
Yes, and I seem to recall reading something about prolonged absence of sunlight during polar winters, too …
So why can the gases that destroy O3 reach the poles but not the gas O3 generated around the equator?
Of course the atmosphere over the poles is also a lot thinner than over the equator and in surface a LOT less than the surface of the equator area. So if gases drift to the poles shouldn’t there be enough O3 drifting to the poles to not have a hole at all?
There was clearly seasonal and annual variation observed in 1957-59. Reason suggests that it happened earlier as well. See figure 16 of the following history of the Dobson spectrometer up to 1966.
https://scihubtw.tw/https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.7.000387
Link not working.
The chemical process is the catalytic reaction of ClO with O3 resulting in the depletion of the O3.
ClO is formed in large quantities on the surface of Polar Stratospheric clouds (PSCs), these clouds require a temperature of less than -78ºC to form and in the Antarctic they form between 15 and 20km. In the spring as the clouds warm up the ClO is released and the O3 is destroyed.
ClO + ClO ➝ (ClO)2
(ClO)2 + sunlight ➝ ClOO + Cl
ClOO ➝ Cl + O2
2(Cl + O3 ➝ ClO + O2)
Net: 2O3 ➝ 3O2
There are additional reactions involved but the formation of the PSCs are the key.
The CFCs are circulated via the Brewer-Dobson circulation, in the polar winter the strong polar vortex (particularly in the antarctic) prevents the O3 created in the tropics and sub-tropics from entering the polar regions. The very cold temperatures there cause the formation of Polar Stratospheric clouds which give rise to the high concentrations of ClO released in the spring which depletes the O3 in the altitude range 15-20 km causing the ozone hole.
There is evidence that volcanic action can affect the ozone layer. link What’s needed is a reliable proxy that can give us information about ozone holes before the modern instrumentation era.
I always thought that the existence of chlorine in the stratosphere was linked to seasonal cyclone activity in the northern and southern hemispheres – i.e. to salt elevated to thousands of feet altitude by oceanic cyclones. Photodissociation of NaCl would explain the existence of the “sodium layer” in the atmosphere (a real thing), plus the abundance of O3 catalyzing Cl, without resorting to the idea that gases with molecular weights on the order > 120 could diffuse from the ground to great altitudes in an atmosphere of mean molecular weight of 29.86.
Anyone else run across this idea?
Dr. Peter Ward (volcano expert) also found the role of natural chlorine in warming events.
“The answer was not long in coming. I knew that all volcanoes release hydrogen chloride
when they erupt, and I also knew that chlorine from man-made chlorofluorocarbon
compounds had been identified in the 1970s as a potent agent of stratospheric ozone
depletion. From these two facts, and a third one, I deduced that it must be the depletion of
ozone by chlorine in volcanic hydrogen chloride—and not the absorption of solar radiation
by sulfur dioxide—that was driving the warming events that followed volcanic eruptions.
The third fact in the equation was the well-known interaction of stratospheric ozone with
solar radiation.”
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2020/01/16/co2-so2-o3-a-journey-of-discovery/
Michael, I wrote a paper in college about this many years ago. Your points were several I listed in the paper along with some noted above like volcano activity.
The professor I had in chemistry doubted the CFC cause of the hole. Like many here he was reluctant to blame humans for something we recently found. At the time I was not able to find out how the sensitivity of the measurements had changed to see if that may have added any to hole size.
China found a loop hole in the agreement and was able to black mail the west by continuing to make refrigerants and threaten to release them unless they got paid. China probably got the money and released or used the stuff anyway.
I think there was a step increase in the hole size in the late 70s or early 80s, clearly a sign of an increase in our ability to detect.
Don’t forget the Space Shuttle launches.
commieBob, since the ozone protects us from UV radiation, and UV radiation causes sunburns, and the ozone hole only occurs over the South Pole, all we need to do is look for evidence of sunburns on the dead penguins in the Antarctic from before the 1950s 🙂
I raise this important issue re ozone holes everytime we have a report on them. For some reason it seems I’m the only one who sees this as no one remarks on it:
Every image of an ozone hole has a collar of thickened ozone often exceeding 500du as if the ozone hasn’t disappeared but rather has been rolled back like a turtleneck sweater
I think I see what you mean but the colors are confusing.
The color for 500 – 525 is red, rgb (251,3,4)
The color for 150 – 175 is magenta, rgb (251,2,252)
I think the graphic is confusing you between red and magenta.
Canada has chosen colors that are quite different from what NOAA has traditionally used.
Gary
Yes, there is a zone of anomalously high ozone around the South Pole because the circumpolar vortex blocks the poleward migration of ozone. Additionally, it is asymmetrical and shifts the centroid of the ‘hole’ away from the ozone high. I suspect that the high partial pressure of the ozone allows some to diffuse through the vortex and elevate the average concentration. Further, every Spring, when the vortex breaks up, that high concentration of ozone makes its way into the low concentration area and quickly brings it up to an essentially normal level, without the anomalously high levels. It is more about the vortex than anything. Even the Arctic ‘hole’ is related to the establishment of a circumpolar vortex.
Is there an australian timeseries (e.g. hobart Tasmania) of stratospheric ozone du that can be compared with the Halley bay observations in Antarctica?
“Both organisations I approached agreed it was theoretically possible the hole could have existed prior to 1957, but thought it unlikely, as it was proven that refrigerants and other man- made chemicals were the cause of the thinning and it must therefore be a recent problem, as the circumstances that caused it did not exist in the past.”
Balderdash! Nothing was PROVEN regarding CFCs and ozone thinning. So many people just assume the science is settled.
The scientist who cobbled up the “science” that blamed CFC refrigerants for ozone destruction was hired by Dupont Chemical to fabricate the study. Dupont’s popular CFC refrigerant was out of patent and being made cheaply all over the world and saving food and lives around the world. So, based on this false study, Dupont blew the issue up and lobbied Washington DC to ban the refrigerant. Once that was accomplished the UN and the world jumped on board. And we have the Kyoto Protocol, which the like to tout as a success, but the real success was by Dupont. With CFCs banned Dupont just happened to have a new, more expensive refrigerant, an HFC not a CFC, already under patent and ready to go. The world is saved, yay!
Wonder of wonders, a couple of years after the second refrigerant was out of patent, two things happened. First, Dupont started making noises toward banning HFCs as potential ozone destroyers and greenhouse gases. Second, the scientist who fabricated the original false study confessed to the scam, but it is way after the horse has left the barn and no one cares.
Meanwhile, real scientists have discovered that the extreme cold over the Antarctic in winter fosters reactions of N2 gas, solar UV, and ozone that break down the ozone. It has nothing to do with CFCs or HFCs, which were part of an industrial scam not climate or environmental crisis.
As Earth is cooling, it is no surprise that ozone thinning might start to occur in the Arctic winter. Another sign that the planet is indeed cooling. We have never seen the Antarctic without an ozone hole and it is dishonest to assume that the hole was not there before we detected it.
Meanwhile, in the real science world. thermodynamic physicists have been unable to make CO2 act as a greenhouse gas. More accurately called a radiative gas, CO2 is an excellent refrigerant, not only for its evaporative properties in refrigeration but also for its only effective IR radiation band being equivalent to -80 deg C. Just sitting there, CO2 is tiring to freeze the world, emitting IR that nothing can absorb because everything is warmer and thus the energy is eventually lost to space.
The UK has had the ingenuous and stupid idea of using propane as a refrigerant, seeking a green solution, but the exploding and burning houses that result are not going to be very positively received.
CO2 has been used as a secondary refrigerant for years, but now we are realizing that it is great all by itself. Mercedes Benz is not using CO2 in the new car A/C systems and new skating rinks are CO2 cooled. Dupont is going to have to discount CO2 as a refrigerant if they want to foist a new refrigerant on the world, but it might be that this genie is out of the bottle. In addition, CO2 cannot burn at all and puts fires out instead, being a win-win. CO2 being very cheap and chemically stable is another win-win.
Freon was created in the late 1930s.
Any patents would have expired a few years later. NOT recently.
That is why DuPont supported the Montreal Protocol. Freon was off patent and they were ready with replacement chemicals.
Here’s some interesting history on the topic.
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-freon-4072212#:~:text=In%201928%2C%20Thomas%20Midgley%2C%20Jr,used%20in%20commerce%20and%20industry.
The patents in question were for the manufacturing process of the freons, not the freons themselves. Once the processes were no longer protected, anybody could make these freons efficiently and cheaply.
Links showing the scientist admitted it was a scan, please? Genuinely interested, not a snark.
You’re throwing out a lot of crap there. That whole patent story is simply not correct. U.S. patents at the time of CFC inventions had a term of 17 years and the first patent I believe was in the late 1920’s.
CO2 requires greater compression to be used as a refrigerant and hence requires more costly equipment. For Mercedes that’s probably not an issue. For mainstream consumer products selling price is very important.
DuPont’s patent was for a manufacturing process, and was filed in 1959- set to expire in 1979. The patent story is absolutely correct.
I would like to see confirmation – either or both ways – for this discussion. Companies can sometimes keep patents going for a lot longer than the official term by later patenting some detail of the product or process. So without confirmation I’m open to either story being correct.
That’s an admirable attitude Mike. When I hear about conspiracy theories that a big company cooked up a scheme to trick the politicians into lining their pockets, that sounds too simplistic to me.
(This is just my gut talking, nothing to back it up).
I wouldn’t be surprised if the truth is closer to DuPont having done a SWOT analysis on their Freon business, identified a threat from research implicating CFCs in damaging the ozone layer, so they had their lab rats come up with alternative products. Once they had alternative products and the anti-capitalists were clamoring to “fight the ozone hole”, now they had an opportunity rather than a threat. They glommed onto that scam for their own selfish reasons. Just like the billionaires selling windmills, and unicorn farts even though they have to be smart enough to do the math and know that they are selling snake oil to the gullible.
Exactly! I traced the whole process whilst doing research for the food industry. Once the chemical companies had identified more-expensive alternatives to FREON, they gleefully leapt on board the ozone hole bandwagon. It was a windfall for them.
The ozone hole theory as expressed and maintained appears to be non-disprovable. After the Montreal agreement, any decrease in the ozone hole is attributed to the Montreal Protocol, and any increase in the ozone hole is attributed to China flouting the Montreal Protocol. When something is a win both ways like that, it isn’t a theory any more and should be torn up and thrown away. That’s the scientific method.
Unfortunately, once politics enters the scene, it’s the scientific method that gets torn up and thrown away.
Oh, I forgot: science has always been rife with politics.
Like CAGW, the CFC explanation of the Ozone Hole is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, and therefore political and not scientific.
+100
Charles,
Is this a typo:
‘Mercedes Benz is using CO2 in the new car A/C systems’? ?
Yes, since 2016 in the top models. https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/news/mercedes-co2-klimaanlage-fuer-s-und-e-klasse/
Charles, “ emitting IR that nothing can absorb ”
Vibrationally — (IR) — excited CO2 undergoes collisional relaxation in the lower atmosphere. It doesn’t emit IR. Collisional relaxation transfers kinetic energy to atmospheric O2 and N2. Were *everything* else to remain constant, the kinetic energy transfer would warm the atmosphere.
But everything else does not remain constant. No one knows how the climate responds to that tiny increase in kinetic energy. Most likely, cloud cover and Hadley convection make small compensating adjustments, and the effects of CO2 emissions are not discernible.
Vibrationally excited CO2 doesn’t relax by emitting IR, except in the stratosphere.
Charles Higley October 10, 2020 at 3:18 pm
More accurately called a radiative gas, CO2 is an excellent refrigerant, not only for its evaporative properties in refrigeration but also for its only effective IR radiation band being equivalent to -80 deg C. Just sitting there, CO2 is tiring to freeze the world, emitting IR that nothing can absorb because everything is warmer and thus the energy is eventually lost to space.
Not true, you need to read up on some physical chemistry.
There is no such thing as the IR band being equivalent to -80ºC.
The emitted 15 micron band is strongly absorbed by water and solid surfaces.
In addition near the surface the the most likely fate of the energy absorbed by CO2 is collisional deactivation by surrounding gas molecules.
“Both organisations I approached agreed it was theoretically possible the hole could have existed prior to 1957, but thought it unlikely, as it was proven that refrigerants and other man- made chemicals were the cause of the thinning and it must therefore be a recent problem, as the circumstances that caused it did not exist in the past.”
Balderdash! Nothing was PROVEN regarding CFCs and ozone thinning. So many people just assume the science is settled.
The scientist who cobbled up the “science” that blamed CFC refrigerants for ozone destruction was hired by Dupont Chemical to fabricate the study. Dupont’s popular CFC refrigerant was out of patent and being made cheaply all over the world and saving food and lives around the world. So, based on this false study, Dupont blew the issue up and lobbied Washington DC to ban the refrigerant. Once that was accomplished the UN and the world jumped on board. And we have the Kyoto Protocol, which the like to tout as a success, but the real success was by Dupont. With CFCs banned Dupont just happened to have a new, more expensive refrigerant, an HFC not a CFC, already under patent and ready to go. The world is saved, yay!
Wonder of wonders, a couple of years after the second refrigerant was out of patent, two things happened. First, Dupont started making noises toward banning HFCs as potential ozone destroyers and greenhouse gases. Second, the scientist who fabricated the original false study confessed to the scam, but it is way after the horse has left the barn and no one cares.
Meanwhile, real scientists have discovered that the extreme cold over the Antarctic in winter fosters reactions of N2 gas, solar UV, and ozone that break down the ozone. It has nothing to do with CFCs or HFCs, which were part of an industrial scam not climate or environmental crisis.
As Earth is cooling, it is no surprise that ozone thinning might start to occur in the Arctic winter. Another sign that the planet is indeed cooling. We have never seen the Antarctic without an ozone hole and it is dishonest to assume that the hole was not there before we detected it.
Meanwhile, in the real science world. thermodynamic physicists have been unable to make CO2 act as a greenhouse gas. More accurately called a radiative gas, CO2 is an excellent refrigerant, not only for its evaporative properties in refrigeration but also for its only effective IR radiation band being equivalent to -80 deg C. Just sitting there, CO2 is tiring to freeze the world, emitting IR that nothing can absorb because everything is warmer and thus the energy is eventually lost to space.
The UK has had the ingenuous and stupid idea of using propane as a refrigerant, seeking a green solution, but the exploding and burning houses that result are not going to be very positively received.
CO2 has been used as a secondary refrigerant for years, but now we are realizing that it is great all by itself. Mercedes Benz is not using CO2 in the new car A/C systems and new skating rinks are CO2 cooled. Dupont is going to have to discount CO2 as a refrigerant if they want to foist a new refrigerant on the world, but it might be that this genie is out of the bottle. In addition, CO2 cannot burn at all and puts fires out instead, being a win-win. CO2 being very cheap and chemically stable is another win-win.
Last year the ozone hole was small due to rare stratospheric sudden warming at south pole. This phenomenon had nothing to do with ”healing” of ozone hole.
Look at this, it caused the zonal wind collapse that allowed the warming.
There are fewer ozone ‘holes’ in the arctic because the region cannot sustain the conditions to support it. Both ozone ‘holes’ are climatic event brought about by, among other things, incident solar radiation.
When the Montreal Protocol was signed it was already known that the e Rowland Molina theory was incorrect. But the UN never lets facts stand in the way of a useful treaty. Their objective was to get c control of the atmosphere in the same way treaties had given them power over land and oceans.
Yes indeed, Molina died just the other day, so I won’t be speaking ill of the dead.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/nobel-laureate-who-helped-save-ozone-layer-dies
So, when the Antarctic ozone hole was thought to be trending down, it was said to be due to the success of the Montreal Protocol. But when the decline proved transient, it was due to “special meteorological conditions.”
That’s like when we have a fierce hurricane season, it’s due to climate change, but when we have a mild hurricane season, it’s just weather.
I do not doubt that the people who say these things believe them. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t biased.
People tend to find what they are looking for, and they tend to overlook what they don’t expect. Remember Josh Willis? He’s the guy who fixed the “problem” with the Argo float data, so that they measured warming, rather than cooling. I’m not suggesting that Dr. Willis is consciously dishonest. But he’s a True Believer in climate alarmism, so when the floats found cooling instead of warming, he looked hard for an error to explain it — and he found one. Would he have looked as hard for the opposite error?
“That’s like when we have a fierce hurricane season, it’s due to climate change, but when we have a mild hurricane season, it’s just weather.”
They don’t have to do that anymore, “they” just put a name on every halfassed organized front moving through the tropics and SHAZAM its the “Worst Hurricane Season Evah!”, over and over and over. I grew up on the Gulf Coast, ’60s-’70s. I remember Camille. Today it is all disaster porn, clickbait, fund raising scams and government sh**spew. Hysteria Culture. It is sick.
10 named storms this year that did not get over 45 mph in the North Atlantic basin. Looks like grade inflation.
Has anyone else noticed (I have been seeing this on Wunderground Tropical all this season) that the Hurricanes are upgraded to a higher category due to wind bursts and not by their highest sustained wind speed? The wind speed will be 100 with burst to 120 or 130 and they have it marked as a Category 3 instead of a 2. I had not seen this in previous years that I recall.
Did they change the algorithm they use?
They use modelling instead of measurements for last 4 years.
The last two hurricanes to make landfall in the Gulf appear to be much more accurate than the previous 4 years. Buoy and shore measurements were close vs an order of magnitude higher. Laura appears to be the last inflated storm. It happened shortly after David Leggates joined NOAA. Only thing I can figure.
In Oz we’re being told that the cool La Niña Pacific we have this year will likely produce more cyclones than a ‘normal’ year. Although I agree, as it’s temperature difference not temperature that likely causes cyclones, this is in direct contradiction to the ‘settled science’ of the CAGW narrative.
They’ve found the motherlode at last. CAGW was not enough to scare us into submission, but COVID-19 is the gift to authoritarians everywhere that just doesn’t stop giving. I predict decades of massive control over who can go where, when, and why. It’s an authoritarian’s wet dream.
That’s why everything is now ‘linked’ to COVID-19 just like it was with CAGW, although that didn’t work. This one will. The sheep are terrified this time.
Sheep are easily distracted, too. Got to use the leftist’s favorite new toy, social media, against them. Like lawyers. Get them eating each other and simply stand back, once the bloody bits start flying none of them pay actual attention to what they are doing. Use their own tactics against them, lie, cheat or steal. Only way to defeat them.
Zig zag. You sound like a conspiracy theory nutjob. If you seriously think Covid is being used as a scare to control us, tell me how does the wrecking of every economy benefit anyone?
Ask China that question, mate.
I definitely believe that some are promoting the scare beyond all rational response. The governments are toeing the line from fear of having everything blamed on them like Trump. There is no other way to explain the ruthless suppression of dissent.
What is even more interesting is that even the WHO is backing down now. Xi must be losing control.
https://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/news/world/coronavirus-who-backflips-on-virus-stance-by-condemning-lockdowns/news-story/f2188f2aebff1b7b291b297731c3da74
It never went away, it’s an effect of the magnetic field and ions in the upper atmosphere and I’d like to bet has always been there.
What always struck me with the ozone hole is that in Australia the ozone layer was thickening. And that in fact it only exists where people do not live.
Bingo! Hans. I’ve noted before that when there is a hole, there is a “collar” of thickened ozone around the hole, which explains Australias thickened ozone. Ozone hasn’t disappeared. It’s been redistributed! This makes Montreal mumbo jumbo chemical reactions unnecessary. The persistence and recurrence of equally large O3 holes is a falsification of this explanation. See: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/10/10/the-ozone-hole-returns-to-both-poles/#comment-3101426
My earlier comment.
Yup!
And, the skin cancer scare here started when doctors were paid $50 (back when $50 was a significant amount of money, not just a packet of smokes) for each cancerous mole found. Given that the vast majority of these are benign, and most everyone has them, lots of doctors made a pretty penny, and the scare was perpetuated.
Skin cancer has a lag of 30 years, so we see the impact from the times when sunbathing became popular.
We’re all going to go to our graves…before one person blames China for anything
….China is still spitting out this crap like nothing ever happened
Explain this:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/10/10/the-ozone-hole-returns-to-both-poles/#comment-3101426
The Montreal P is based on wrong chemistry.
God yes the yellow peril is behind everything bad, how did we forget?!
Banned CFCs traced to China say scientists
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48353341
======
Ozone hole mystery: China insulating chemical said to be source of rise
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44738952
———-
Increase in CFC-11 emissions from eastern China based on atmospheric observations
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1193-4
============
China responsible for surge in ozone-depleting emissions: study
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-environment-ozone/china-responsible-for-surge-in-ozone-depleting-emissions-study-idUSKCN1ST0A8
…need more asswipe
Not everything, but quite a lot.
Yes quite a lot, not least their ongoing abuse of Hong Kong.
One of the supposed signs of man-made climate change is the cooling of the stratosphere because more heat is trapped in the troposphere below. The stratosphere’s temperature profile is largely due to ozone absorbing ultraviolet energy. Wouldn’t a reduction in stratospheric ozone be a more likely cause of stratospheric cooling? I guess a good question to ask is how much incoming ultraviolet solar radiation that reaches the troposphere or the surface gets re-emitted in wavelengths that would also heat the stratosphere on the return trip?
“There has been a rise in the emission of an illegal greenhouse gas that destroys the earth’s ozone layer — and China is responsible”
CNBC 23rd May 2019
The ozone hole CFC story has been total and utter rubbish from the start. They’re storytelling on the fly based on purely natural ozone “hole” variation. They’ve fallen into the logical fallacy of assuming that a thing that is newly discovered did not exist before it was discovered, only coming into existence at the time of its discovery.
At its core, it’s a theory of correlation equals causation. When new information appears that contradicts our understanding, then theory must be reassessed.
Not to mention that other fallacy of starting with the Conclusion.
Do the metaphorical equivalent of playing Billy Preston’s “Will it go round in circles” for a couple of paychecks and then HEY PRESTO …. what do you know?
The Conclusion = the Conclusion.
Just a few notes I have made regarding Ozone over the years. I’m not an expert. Just sharing.
Ozone allows life to exist on Earth by blocking ionizing short-wavelength UV and most Mid-Range UV wavelengths.
Ozone (O3) is formed in the middle Stratosphere when Atomic Oxygen (O) and Diatomic Oxygen (O2) recombine to form Ozone (O3) and release Heat found in the Stratosphere.
Atomic Oxygen is prevalent in the upper Stratosphere due to the bombardment of Ultraviolet (UV) Light from the Sun which splits Ozone (O3) and Diatomic Oxygen (O2).
Ozone in the Earth’s Stratosphere is reactive and unstable and is created by UV light striking Oxygen molecules splitting them into individual oxygen atoms which then recombine to create Ozone.
Solar Energy affects rates of Stratospheric Ozone production due to varying amounts of Solar UV Radiation emitted from the Sun. UV light comes from the Sun so when the sun goes down Ozone is no longer created which explains why the Antarctic winter results in a natural drop in Stratospheric Ozone due to the 6-month polar night. The Polar Vortex prevents mixing of Ozone-rich air outside of the polar circulation with the Ozone-depleted air inside the Polar Vortex thus there will always be an “Ozone Hole” over Antarctica in the Spring as was predicted by Gordon Dobson in the 1920’s well before ozone levels were directly measured by satellites. This explains why ozone is measured in Dobson Units.
Chlorine destroys Ozone and is found in Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), however CFC molecules are heavy and require a lot of turbulence to make it up to the Polar Stratosphere as well as require an undiscovered mechanism to transport CFCs from the industrial Northern Hemisphere to the South Pole.
The “Ozone Hole” is not really a Hole but an area where Ozone Levels are low due to cold temperatures which promote the formation of Natural Ozone-depleting chemicals found in Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSC) as well as natural sources of chlorine so it is likely the “Ozone Hole” has always been there and actually wasn’t caused by your hairspray.
Ozone (O3) is produced primarily in the Tropical Stratosphere in a process known as The Chapman Cycle when Atomic Oxygen (O) and Diatomic Oxygen (O2) recombine to continually form Ozone (O3) and converts Ultraviolet radiation (UV) into Heat found in the Stratosphere which is why ambient temperatures drop when traveling up through the Troposphere but increase when traveling through the Stratosphere.
The ozone hole is a natural phenomenon. The ozone layer is produced by the action of sunlight on oxygen atoms in the stratosphere. During the polar winter, in the absence of sunlight, the ozone spontaneously breaks down back into oxygen. The half life of ozone is 3 months at -50C and 18 days at -35C.
“The International Energy Agency expects global CO2 emissions to drop by 8% this year.” Global CO2 emissions include the non-anthropogenic contribution , which is approximately 95% ±3% of the total. It is doubtful that true global CO2 emissions will decrease by much. So the sentence should include “man-caused” to be truthful.
I agree. Tony Brown in his post on ozone mentioned this. I submitted my agreement earlier.
To Tony Brown: Thank you for your presentation on ozone.
Regarding your suggestion: “Like the ozone hole, CO2 emissions seem surprisingly robust and any reduction in its rate of increase following the sharpest lockdown on human activity since the industrial revolution is difficult to discern at present”. Your link is the best to use: https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/mlo.html
At this link one can select “Interactive Plot” on the opening page. A graph will be showing monthly average CO2 since 1958. At the bottom of the graph there are two sliders to go up or bottom of the graph on the X axis.
Click on the slider on the left and go up to and stop when you see 2012 or so. Now look at the situation. Easy to see, when from ENSO we have El Nino starting 2015, mid 2015 started to increase CO2 and stay at the increasing even today. This would suggest that the increase was due to CO2 release from the oceans due to increase in ocean temperature. Quite plausible from Henry’s law. And this increase was steady until now.
Currently, from ENSO we have going out of El Nino back to neutral and maybe toward La Nina, cooler oceans temperature. Indeed, you are right that no decrease in CO2 can be demonstrated so far due to the pandemic.
This would suggest that the increase was due to CO2 release from the oceans due to increase in ocean temperature. Quite plausible from Henry’s law. And this increase was steady until now.
Short term trends will be affected by ENSO but not the overall trend – so ENSO partly explains increases but we still see increases in La Nina years when oceans are cooler. The overall trend is still positive.
If ENSO were soely determining CO2 levels we’d just see fluctuations in a generally flat long term trend.
ENSO indicating El Nino status simply provides an explanation of increase slightly of CO2 in air over the general increase due to natural increase from all other natural sources.
So indeed if ENSO turns to indicate La Nina, will CO2 continue to increase. It certainly will. However, will we see a diminution in the baseline rate like seeing the baseline increase when El Nino started in 2015-2016.
This what I posted. We will now have to wait and see, yes obviously the overall trend will be positive. However we may learn something about the influence of ENSO.
To Tony Brown: Thank you for your presentation on ozone.
Regarding your suggestion: “Like the ozone hole, CO2 emissions seem surprisingly robust and any reduction in its rate of increase following the sharpest lockdown on human activity since the industrial revolution is difficult to discern at present”. Your link is the best to use: https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/mlo.html
At this link one can select “Interactive Plot” on the opening page. A graph will be showing monthly average CO2 since 1958. At the bottom of the graph there are two sliders to go up or bottom of the graph on the X axis.
Click on the slider on the left and go up to and stop when you see 2012 or so. Now look at the situation. Easy to see, when from ENSO we have El Nino starting 2015, mid 2015 started to increase CO2 and stay at the increasing even today. This would suggest that the increase was due to CO2 release from the oceans due to increase in ocean temperature. Quite plausible from Henry’s law. And this increase was steady until now.
Currently, from ENSO levels we have going out of El Nino back to neutral and maybe toward La Nina, cooler oceans temperature. Indeed, you are right that no decrease in CO2 can be demonstrated so far due to the pandemic. Just the opposite occured.
rd50,
Useful tip about the interactive version of the atmospheric CO2 graph for Mauna Loa. Thanks. Here is a version of the data which I put together some time ago, which supports your comment:
Yes. I hope you continue with your graph for several years, particularly if we go into La Nina.
Thanks for the response. I will try to keep it up to date, but of course the key with this one was the lack of a follow up La Niña (so far … unlike others such as 1997-1998). What I really need to do is to highlight the δ13C response which is very widely overlooked, perhaps because it is not well understood even though it is critical to any attempt to understand atmospheric CO2 behavior.
F Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina taught a graduate level gas phase kinetics while I was at UCI between 1975 and 1979. It was a very good class. His work on CFC’s was born out of looking for how they might contribute to smog formation in the LA Basin. Turns out They were very photochemically stable in the lower atmosphere so didn’t contribute to smog. They only broke down at very altitudes with a shorter wavelength of UV radiation and they released Chorine radicals. The Chlorine radicals are the actual culprit in depleting Ozone. CFC’s just deliver the chorine without getting washed out by the weather in the lower atmosphere.
If there is a natural way to deliver chorine to the stratosphere without it being washed out by weather at lower altitudes. This could lead to ozone depletion. As the article stated, it was very cold at the poles with a strong polar vortex and I can’t see why Ice particles couldn’t provide an alternate path to bring chlorine to the stratosphere at the poles. It would be released in the spring when warmed by the sun and then dispersed/washed out which is essentially what happens.
Considering the lies of the warmists we know about, I consider the ozone / cfc was used as a test scam run for the current warming scam. Both of these scams have nothing to do with the climate in any way but are a political exercise in socialists gaining ascendancy to have the world turned into a one world communist state.
The World Ocean is a source of halogens.
I’ve been skeptical of the claims made about human-causes since Old Shep was a pup.
Non-fluorinated halogenated hydrocarbons are also listed as ozone depleting compounds.
In 1957, the enormous production by seaweed of halogenated hydrocarbons was unknown. Likewise, it wasn’t until the 1990s that it became known that soil bacteria also produce halogenated hydrocarbons.
These chemicals, including methylene chloride CH2Cl2, chloroform CHCL3, and carbon tetrachloride, CCl4, all can be entrained by convection into the upper atmosphere.
Seaweed produce a veritable witches brew of chlorinated hydrocarbons, as well as the brominated alternatives.
All of this, of course, was a constant of the climate well before humans ever came on the scene, much less developed technology.
If halogenated hydrocarbons are the ozone-depleting culprit, humans aren’t the originally guilty party
Charles Higley your wise contributions over a broad range of important issues deserve applause. I do hope we can correspond. My email address is michael@michaeldarby.net.
A suggestion, Michael: In general, putting an unobfuscated email address in blog posts (or anywhere “out on the Internet”) is probably a bad idea, because it enables ‘bots (programs) to find and “harvest” your email address. Such ‘bots are used by spammers to build the lists of email addresses which they target.
That increases the amount of spam that you’ll receive at that address.
One solution is to use an image of your email address, like I do here:
https://sealevel.info/contact.html
Another solution is to obfuscate it with English prose, perhaps like this:
michael [at-sign] michaeldarby [period, and something thrown from a boat to catch fish in John 21:6]
Or this:
somename.delete.these.seven.words.from.my.address@michaeldarby.com
Or this:
“ncdave4life” (at that gargantuan googley email service)
This is probably insufficiently obfuscated:
somename at gmail dot com
When I first asked Cambridge and Max Planck about this a decade ago, one of them said they were hoping to conduct a study to try to backtrack ozone levels before 1957. I shall see if anything ever came of this.
As for CO2, it will be interesting to see where that heads. A couple of weeks ago Javier did a calculation here that demonstrated the effect of the lockdown on man made CO2- which is 4% of the total. The figure came to something like a 0.2ppm reduction when all the sinks were considered in the rate of increase. If he is around he might like to clarify that.
As the link in the article shows an 8% change is expected but with the caveat that it will take a year to be seen and natural variability might obscure it.
We shall see sometime in 2021 the lockdown effect and in 2021 we will also see if the ozone hole grows larger or smaller
tonyb
Tonyb –
If the sinks are constant (likely incorrect, but that is what most calculations assume, except for the seasonal fluctuations) then a reduction in man-made output should show up rather more quickly, as it will be proportionately a larger reduction of the ‘mass balance’ excess, rather like an 8% reduction in revenue is going to do some serious damage to your profit and loss account! However, the ‘mass balance’ argument is to me unconvincing in any case where biological systems are involved, and assumes we know a heck of a lot more about quantifying those flows than we actually do, so I wouldn’t expect anything conclusive to come of this.
What the CFC or ODS do to the global warming is found in this study from January 2020:
“Substantial twentieth-century Arctic warming caused by ozone-depleting substances”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0677-4
About half of the arctic warming and a third of global warming is “made” by the CFCs.
That means the CO2 is not the only (or the main?) cause of the AGW …. ?!
As for CO2, it will be interesting to see where that heads. A couple of weeks ago Javier did a calculation here that demonstrated the effect of the lockdown on man made CO2- which is 4% of the total. The figure came to something like a 0.2ppm reduction when all the sinks were considered in the rate of increase. If he is around he might like to clarify that.
Think about it logically. CO2 was increasing in the atmosphere by around 1 ppm per year when human emissions were less than half of what they are now. It’s likely that emissions in 2020 are at least 80% of 2019 emissions so why would the atmospheric concentration increase be any less than 80% of last year’s.
There are fluctuations around the ENSO cycle (i.e. warmer oceans = less CO2 absorption; cooler = more) but the reduction in CO2 won’t affect the overall trend much.
Mr Finn you highlight what people had wrong or incomplete until now.
If ENSO were solely determining CO2 levels we’d just see fluctuations in a generally flat long term trend. and
There are fluctuations around the ENSO cycle (i.e. warmer oceans = less CO2 absorption; cooler = more) but the reduction in CO2 won’t affect the overall trend much.
Outgassing occurs above 25.6C. The area of the ocean above 25.6 has grown (from decadal solar activity above 93 v2 SN) leading to overall ocean warming and more CO2 due to the increasing ratio over time of above 25.6 to below 25.6C ocean temperatures, causing more outgassing, driving the trend in CO2. The 12m change in CO2 lags by 5 months the 12m change in ocean area >=25.6C.
ML CO2 is a measure of outgassing alone, not of MM emissions. All MME and excess natural CO2 is re-absorbed via greening and ocean sinking very quickly. The ML CO2 level is only set by what the ocean will allow the air to hold via Henry’s Law. The most recent Nino34 data has it at 25.6C. The last Nino3 weekly data is at 23.8C, lower than 25.6C, and it will be lower for at least a few months or maybe longer, which will impact the ML CO2 readings downward. By how much? Don’t know haven’t figured it out.
Late this year or early next year I expect to hear many claims that such future falling ML CO2 was from reduced emissions, when it won’t be, just from less outgassing due to lower Nino 3 below 25.6C.
Ozone thinning occurs when there is very cold air as in Antarctica, colder than the Arctic. The Arctic is supposed to be warming, bit of a disconnect there somewhere.
Nothing new under the sun, yet again. Every so often, scares have to be regenerated to keep the public onside and the money still flowing:
This was in 2006: https://theozonehole.com/arcticozone.htm
“An Arctic Ozone Hole, if similar in size to the Antarctic Ozone Hole, could expose over 700+ million people, wildlife and plants to dangerous UV ray levels. The likelihood of this happening seems inevitable based on the deterioration of ozone layer caused by the effects of global warming on the upper atmosphere.”
So these happy souls don’t even bring CFC’s into the picture for their scary scenario. There is of course, no knowledge of whether the Antarctic ozone “hole” has been growing and shrinking since time immemorial, before anyone ever thought to measure it and link it to CFC’s.
Also in 2006 we had a familiar headline, “Biggest ozone hole on record opens up over Antarctic”
27 October 2006: https://www.edie.net/news/1/Biggest-ozone-hole-on-record-opens-up-over-Antarctic/12192/
“The record depletion, which saw practically all of the ozone gone from the crucial region 8-13 km above the earth’s surface, coincided with extremely high levels of chlorine ozone-depleting chemicals in high atmospheric regions. In this critical layer, the instrument measured a record low of only 1.2 DU., having rapidly plunged from an average non-hole reading of 125 DU in July and August,” NOAA said.
David Hofmann of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory said: “These numbers mean the ozone is virtually gone in this layer of the atmosphere. The depleted layer has an unusual vertical extent this year, so it appears that the 2006 ozone hole will go down as a record-setter.
The World Meteorological Organization predicted that the ozone hole would fully recover by 2065 in its recently completed Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion, with the recovery initially masked by annual variation.”
In the case of CO2, the role of natural emissions is greatly down-played. In the case of CFC’s it is usually denied. However, in 2007 BAS found natural ozone depleting chemicals in the Antarctic atmosphere: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-07/uol-nct072607.php
“The team of atmospheric chemists carried out an 18-month study of the make-up of the lowest part of the earth’s atmosphere on the Brunt Ice Shelf, about 20 km from the Weddell Sea. They found high concentrations of halogens – bromine and iodine oxides – which persist throughout the period when there is sunlight in Antarctica (August through May).”
The source of the halogens is natural – sea-salt in the case of bromine, and in the case of iodine, almost certainly bright orange algae that coat the underside of the sea ice around the continent.
These halogens cause a substantial depletion in ozone above the ice surface. This affects the so-called oxidising capacity of the atmosphere – its ability to “clean itself” by removing certain – often man-made – chemical compounds. The iodine oxides also form tiny particles (a few nanometres in size), which can grow to form ice clouds, with a consequent impact on the local climate.”
These effects were of course blamed on “climate change”.
There were rich pickings to be had from CFC destruction under the UN CDM mechanism: https://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE65C1FZ20100613
“Analysis of monitoring data from all registered HFC-23 destruction projects revealed that plants are intentionally operated in a manner to maximize the production of CERs,” CDM Watch said in a statement. “Because of the extra revenue … far more HFC-23 is generated than would occur without the CDM.”
The UN supposedly took action against this scam which was rampant in China and India: https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/un-halts-carbon-credits-to-chinese-hfc-plants/
It must have stopped you think. Not quite, this was written last year:
https://blueskieschina.com/2019/04/24/how-china-gamed-the-wests-carbon-credits/
“The UN, to be fair, came down reasonably quickly to stop this chemical loophole. But, too late, given how many CERs had already been issued. To date, even though no new HFC-23 project has been approved since 2009, the CER registry is completely overrun by Chinese and Indian HFC-23. And that’s stuff is still on sale today.
China’s dominance of the Kyoto subsidy scheme and the quantities of HFC-23 CERs beggar belief. Chinese HFC-23 accounts for 76% of the total world’s HFC-23 reduction credits, at around 447 million tonnes, with HFC-23 now accounting for 43% of China’s total CER haul and 25% of the world’s total CERs. 447 million CERs is $2.7 billion at 2012 prices.”
Increased CFC production in China was detected last year:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48353341
“Researchers say that they have pinpointed the major sources of a mysterious recent rise in a dangerous, ozone-destroying chemical. CFC-11 was primarily used for home insulation but global production was due to be phased out in 2010. But scientists have seen a big slowdown in the rate of depletion over the past six years. This new study says this is mostly being caused by new gas production in eastern provinces of China.”
Yes, same as my comment and your graph shows this very well.
We just have to wait now to see if this increase will be sustained.
Using this interactive graph, go back earlier. We can see the same phenomenon earlier when El Nino started and then a return back. Not as pronounced as the current one and not lasting long enough to draw any conclusion. The current one has been on for since 2015. Should be interesting if it stays this way or if the ENSO meter indicates a La Nina and there is a return on your graph.
rd50,
Was this a response to me?
Yes it was. I don’t know what is happening at this site. Very slow to post a reply and /or a reply to a specific poster is posted at a wrong place.
I hope we get La Nina at any time now. If you show a the decrease in your graph if this happens it certainly would indicate that oceans temperatures changes are a significant factor.
I always suspected that the ozone hole problem could be a result of capturing a very short period of data from a long period cycle. Analogous to breaking the Nyquist frequency constraint with Fast Fourier Transforms, perhaps there should be a special name for capturing just the upslope of a cyclic wave.
I think they call it Global Warming?
I have three questions:
1) Given that ozone is created by sunlight’s interaction with oxygen and that ozone has a short half life, should the presence of ozone holes in the polar regions during periods of no sunlight (i.e., winter) be expected?
2) Have (heavy molecular weight) fluorocarbons actually been identified in the ozone layer.
3) What other factors can affect the rate of ozone creation and decomposition in the ozone layer?
Looking forward to your replies.
Ozone is created by UV interaction with oxygen and ozone is destroyed by UV (lower energy). Consequently both the creation of O3 and its destruction halts during the polar winter. Destruction of O3 starts in the spring when the stratosphere warms up releasing chlorine containing molecules which had been stored in the Polar Stratospheric clouds. These compounds catalyst the destruction of O3 as more UV reaches the polar stratosphere the regeneration of O3 accelerates. There is no ozone hole in the winter.
I was swayed by this Peter Temple video years ago. That is ozone is a very unstable molecule and probably influenced by many things but, most significantly by the lack of UV light during polar winters. Solar UV creates ozone. A lack of sunlight causes its depletion. The idea that molecular heavy Freon enables chlorine concentrations to somehow find their way to the poles and then elevate itself to the stratosphere to attack ozone is suspicious. Peter claims this science has never been proven. So, how is Peter wrong? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc2M_FKyvaE&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0ge6U7M6mexA1M9xp3bSFg6gcG6ftULniVOs9VsHFv5V0G0K9g8E24LtY&ab_channel=worldcyclesinstitute
“I have seen this happen before, of course. We should have been warned by the CFC/ozone affair because the corruption of science in that was so bad that something like 80% of the measurements being made during that time were either faked, or incompetently done.”
-James Lovelock
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock/print
And is skeptics of CO2 induced bad weather have seen this before in climate science via the climate gate emails.
VOTE Biden if you support globalism and want the new world that the WEF and the rich multi-millionaire and billionaire leftist slobs who attend it via their private jets have planned for us.
Typo: should have said
“And us skeptics of CO2 induced bad weather…”
Just saw a post on LinkedIn quoting President Trump about getting Regeneron and how he felt much better immediately, and authorized it and called it a cure.
Then the author saying this is anti-scientific and all scientists must rally to refute this n of 1 politicization of such an important topic.
And yet with global warming, so much is based on this n of 1 interpretation. A hurricane going this way or that way or stalling or not stalling. An ozone hole being bigger or smaller or later or earlier. A gaunt polar bear, a coral reef bleaching event. A tree ring series, a glacier retreating (never mind if it extends for a few years).
Yet we get lectured by those who now demand every scientist rebuke Trump when they’ve been the ones rebuking skeptics for decades.
“Trump Derangement Syndrome” {TDS} has not yet made it into the official book of mental disorders. If he is elected for a 2nd term raising this from a “folk category” to a real condition may be necessary. How else will those with TDS get the help they need? Let’s hope he wins so we can see how this plays out.
If the USA gets a Harris-Biden administration there will we an immediate recovery or dissipation of TDS for millions of people. Ten years after “The Donald’s” death, TDS will be a footnote of history.
Yeah, the Regeneron cocktail will probably be blackballed by the media because it seems to have had very good results when used on Trump.
I told my doctor if I get the Wuhan virus, I want what the president got. He told me that’s easier said than done. 🙂
I read where it will take a couple of months to produce two million doses of the Regeneron cocktail, so it’s not going to be widely available for a while unless they step up production.
It looks like Trump went from positive to negative in about a week. We don’t know what exactly to attribute that to, but we’ll know more in the future.
With a medication that can prevent people from suffering dire consequences from the Wuhan virus by limiting the stay of the virus in the body, the population can pretty much go back to business as usual, assuming there are enough doses to meet the needs. It looks to me like we have several drugs that can do this job if used early enough in the process.
The picture is going to be looking better in the next few months. Effective medications bridging the gap to vaccines.
And we will be in much better shape for any future unknown viruses that rear their ugly heads. Practice makes perfect.
And if we rid ourselves of the radical Democrat infection by voting them out of office on November 3, we will thrive for decades to come.
The ozone “hole” was first discovered in 1956, not 1957. It was confirmed to be a natural occurrence in 1957. The natural cause was determined in 1958. This was before widespread use of substances that resulted in so-called “ozone depleting substances” emissions. Like global warming, it is not and never was a problem.
I agree with Art.
The pulsing polar holes of the ozone are still regarded as evidence of its depletion from human activity and remains one of the chapters in the man-made global warming scary narrative nonsense.
We all know some industrial compounds (chlorofluorocarbons or CFC’s) chemically react with the O3 molecule of the ozone layer of the stratosphere thus “depleting” it. But there are other explanations.
The ozone layer is relatively thin (at 1 atm it would be less than 1/8 of an inch thick) and in a constant state of replenishment as well as depletion. 12 to 25 miles up high energy UV splits the O2 molecule into two atomic O1 molecules that then combine with O2 to form the unstable, temporary O3 ozone molecule which absorbs low energy UV. It is understood, or should be understood the main reasons for the changing polar ozone hole sizes are natural and include the seasonal lack of light, the atmospheric fluid dynamics of the polar vortices, fluctuations with naturally occurring nitrous oxide and most importantly, the solar variances in UV radiation.
I wish they’d get rid of the Montreal Protocol and lift the ban on REAL Albuterol that actually works.
The magnetic field solar flares and northern lights
Northern Lights and Ozone
February 24, 1976 / T. Neil Davis
The ozone layer–the thin high-altitude shield of O 3 molecules that protects life on earth from damaging solar ultraviolet light–continues in the news. Chemicals released by aerosol spray cans and SST aircraft have the potential to destroy ozone, but just how large these effects are remains controversial.
Now, a recent TIME (February 23, 1976) article cites the effect on ozone of large solar flares. Similar processes occur over Fairbanks when the aurora appears. The same incoming particles (fast electrons and protons) causing the aurora affect the chemistry of the high atmosphere. Nitrogen oxides are formed which attack the ozone.
Consequently, the ozone content of the air over Fairbanks rapidly goes up and down depending upon the amount of aurora. Whether or not this causes us any special problems here is not yet known.
https://www.gi.alaska.edu/alaska-science-forum/northern-lights-and-ozone
Doesn’t look like jet travel became an issue.
In 1998 a New Scientist report, super sonic jets damage ozone.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15320692-500-science-aircraft-wreak-havoc-on-ozone-layer/
NASA website highlights jet exhaust problem.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/fs10grc.html
Just another situation w multiple natural and human contributing factors.
Seems that Southern Hemisphere likely for thousands years had ozone hole, given Antarctica stability. Liveable zones close to South Pole, high UV, dark skin best, liveable regions close to North Pole, lower UV, light skin best.
Australians with blood lines from Northern Europe – highest skin cancer rates in the world. So whites fry inder an ozone depleted sky. Worst place for sunburn, most southern part, Tasmania, lower atmospheric moisture w ozone hole.
Nobody has yet been able to explain to me how a gas with Mw > 100 (and in some cases, very much so) can reach significant concentration in the stratosphere, by just brownian motion. Yes, if you fill a box with ozone and add some CFCs, they will gradually eat it up. But has it some relation to the REAL situation? I’d have more than some doubt.
Moreover, has anyone tried to estimate the amount of ozone-depleting gas that can have been released by Mt. Erebus, which is erupting CONSTANTLY since 1972? For that’s really propelled in the high atmosphere.
Giorgio October 12, 2020 at 7:25 am
Nobody has yet been able to explain to me how a gas with Mw > 100 (and in some cases, very much so) can reach significant concentration in the stratosphere, by just brownian motion. Yes, if you fill a box with ozone and add some CFCs, they will gradually eat it up. But has it some relation to the REAL situation? I’d have more than some doubt.
It’s not due just to Brownian motion it’s due to turbulent flow (winds, convection etc.), the atmosphere below 100km is known as the homosphere where the composition does not depend on altitude.
Moreover, has anyone tried to estimate the amount of ozone-depleting gas that can have been released by Mt. Erebus, which is erupting CONSTANTLY since 1972? For that’s really propelled in the high atmosphere.
Mt Erebus is a non factor it’s a Strombolian eruption in which the material is only ejected a few hundred feet, also the chlorine containing gases are water soluble and rapidly fall out of the atmosphere.
The Antarctic ozone hole probably originated in 1972.
That is when Mount Erebus started erupting. It has been active ever since, continuously injecting halogens into the stratosphere above Antarctica.
They say this:
“Thanks to the Montreal Protocol, ozone in the upper stratosphere – ie above 30 kilometres – has increased significantly since 1998, and the stratosphere is also recovering above the polar regions,” said William Ball, researcher at ETH Zurich.”
However, my previous hypothesis predicted just that:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/
with the cause being solar variations.
I also predicted a rebalancing of the relationship between El Nino and La Nina in favour of La Nina for a cooling world.
So prior to 1957 there was no data at all regarding the ozone hole at the poles, and given that the earth is a few BILLION years old, we are to believe that “anomalies” observed since 1957 MUST be caused by human activity.
Really now.
So nobody considered that perhaps the entire data set could be an anomaly given the very short time frame over which the data was measured??
Nobody thought that maybe the ozone hole growing and shrinking has been occurring for, say, a Billion years or so, well before human activity could have been a contributing cause?
IF it rains four days in a row and then not on the 5th day, can one conclude that something out of the ordinary is occurring?
And we are supposed to “follow the science.”
Give me a F’n break.
Zombie Satellites, Killer Electrons, Ozone Depletion and Climate Change!
This is an AMAZING presentation by Craig Rodger at the University of Otago. He’s the most zany animated scientist who will leave you entertained as well as informed. 🧐
Rarely does a scientific presentation make me laugh and even more rarely does one bring me tears because the subject is so near and dear to my passion.
This is a remix of two presentations he did on the subject of ‘Killer Electrons’ which is really a catchy term scientists use for Energetic Electron Precipitation aka: EEP which as he explains is an upper atmospheric phenomenon that can have a dynamic effect on stratospheric ozone losses and climate temperatures.
The first one done in 2014 is the funnest to watch, though his 2016 presentation added new data regarding *long term* EEP-NOx effects on ozone variability.
~ ~ (Video RemiX ~32min)
U of Otago: Zombie Satellites, AARDDVARK Radio, Killer Electrons and Space Physics: [https://youtu.be/zuTFQ0nZ4do]
~
Space Talk at SANSA: Zombie Satellites, Killer Electrons and Physics in Space: [https://youtu.be/kzQsq9RkYFQ]
~
LASP UCBoulder: Zombie Satellites, Killer Electrons, and Physics in Space—AARDDVARK Radio research: [https://youtu.be/_qjk8RRzyrc]
~ ~ ~ Endnote and hat tip to the hypothesis of TIPER-NOx: Transmitter Induced Ozone Depletion👇
Long-Term Evolution of the Occurrence Rate of Magnetospheric Electron Precipitation into the Earth’s Atmosphere:
“The Energetic Electron Precipitation (EEP) events are associated mainly with high-velocity solar wind fluxes and are often observed during the decaying phase of the 11-year solar cycle.
A long-term growing trend that does not correlate with the parameters of solar and geomagnetic activity has been observed in the occurrence rate of EEP precipitation.
👉This trend could be due to the effect of ground-based VLF transmitters📡on the wave activity of the magnetosphere.👈
The part played by EEP precipitating magnetospheric electrons in atmospheric chemical reactions responsible for the dynamics of the ozone content and changes in temperature in the stratosphere and mesosphere is also poorly understood”
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333832733_Long-Term_Evolution_of_the_Occurrence_Rate_of_Magnetospheric_Electron_Precipitation_into_the_Earth’s_Atmosphere]
~ ~ ~ Further Research on EEP-NOx, Ozone & Climate 👇
Dr. Allison Jaynes on Cutting Edge Radiation Belt Research for the National Academy of Sciences 2018 – Energetic Electrons from the Earth’s Radiation Belts can cause ozone depletion affecting weather and climate: [https://www.facebook.com/ethan.clark.96930/videos/125481668610884]
~ ~ ~ No alarmism.. no denial.. no conspiracy.. just raw climate forcing mechanism ☝️🧐
Broadcast Theory of Climate Change ~ Transmitter Induced Ozone Depletion in the Early Twentieth Century Warming Period:
http://Www.BroadcastTheory.com ~ #tiperNOx
Reconsidering the Montreal Protocol as the reduction of Ozone Depleting Substances may have had less of an impact than previously thought ~ yet ozone depletion prevails as a leading cause of climate cooling.. and warming.
And it’s about as worse as its ever been. So what’s causing it?
The Montreal Protocol is considered a success story.. yet the largest ozone hole ever in the historic record formed in the Arctic 2020:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/03/14/polar-vortex-spring-weather/]
~ ~ ~
Scientists now acknowledge that ozone loss plays a MORE significant role.. even if they continue to *predict* that Greenhouse gases *might* play a large roll in the future.
“This suggests that the ozone recovery [/depletion] is currently a stronger influence on the Southern Hemisphere than greenhouse gas emissions. The study indicates that changes in the *ozone layer* ARE the *primary* driver.” – March 2020
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/shrinking-ozone-hole-climate-change-are-causing-atmospheric-tug-of-war/]
~ ~ ~
“While ozone depletion has long been known to increase harmful UV radiation at the Earth’s surface, its effect on climate has only recently become evident. ..the ozone hole above Antarctica in particular was having a far-reaching effect on climate in the Southern Hemisphere.
It is now clear that ozone depletion is directly contributing to climate change across the Southern Hemisphere,” – June 2019
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190624111536.htm]
~ ~ ~
“Chloroflourocarbons (CFCs) and other compounds involved in ozone depletion are also powerful greenhouse gases, but their contribution to global warming is reduced due to the cooling effect of the ozone loss which they induce.
Models informing an upcoming climate report disagree on the ozone loss and thus on the climate influence of these Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS).
Here we use observed ozone loss to reduce the resultant uncertainty in its overall climate influence and infer a larger cooling (ie. ozone loss is more influential)
Here we use observed ozone loss to reduce the resultant uncertainty in their overall climate influence and infer a smaller warming influence of these Ozone Depleting Substances than was considered likely in a 2013 climate report.
The result implies a smaller benefit to climate due to their phase‐out, mandated under the Montreal Protocol, than would have been the case under previous understanding.” – Sept 2020
[https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL088295]
~ ~ ~
Take Away: The Montreal Protocol and the reduction of Ozone Depleting Substances may have had less of an impact than previously thought ~ yet ozone depletion prevails as a leading cause of climate cooling.. and warming.