“New” ozone hole much larger than Antarctic ozone hole
CREDIT: QING-BIN LU
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS
WASHINGTON, July 5, 2022 – An ozone hole, seven times larger than the Antarctic ozone hole, is currently sitting over tropical regions and has been since the 1980s, according to a Canadian researcher.
In AIP Advances, by AIP Publishing, Qing-Bin Lu, a scientist from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, reveals a large, all-season ozone hole – defined as an area of ozone loss larger than 25% compared with the undisturbed atmosphere – in the lower stratosphere over the tropics comparable in depth to that of the well-known springtime Antarctic hole, but its area is roughly seven times greater.
“The tropics constitute half the planet’s surface area and are home to about half the world’s population,” said Lu. “The existence of the tropical ozone hole may cause a great global concern.
“The depletion of the ozone layer can lead to increased ground-level UV radiation, which can increase risk of skin cancer and cataracts in humans, as well as weaken human immune systems, decrease agricultural productivity, and negatively affect sensitive aquatic organisms and ecosystems.”
Lu’s observation of the ozone hole comes as a surprise to his peers in the scientific community, since it was not predicted by conventional photochemical models. His observed data agree well with the cosmic-ray-driven electron reaction (CRE) model and strongly indicate the identical physical mechanism working for both Antarctic and tropical ozone holes.
As with the polar ozone hole, approximately 80% of the normal ozone value is found to be depleted at the center of the tropical ozone hole. Preliminary reports show ozone depletion levels over equatorial regions are already endangering large populations and the associated UV radiation reaching these regions is far greater than expected.
In the mid-1970s, atmospheric research suggested the ozone layer, which absorbs most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, might be depleted because of industrial chemicals, primarily chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The 1985 discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole confirmed CFC-caused ozone depletion. Although bans on such chemicals have helped slow ozone depletion, evidence suggests ozone depletion persisted.
Lu said the tropical and polar ozone holes play a major role in cooling and regulating stratospheric temperatures, mirroring the formation of three “temperature holes” in the global stratosphere. He said this finding may prove crucial to better understanding global climate change.
Lu’s discovery builds on previous studies of the CRE-initiated ozone-depleting mechanism that he and his colleagues originally proposed about two decades ago.
“The present discovery calls for further careful studies of ozone depletion, UV radiation change, increased cancer risks, and other negative effects on health and ecosystems in the tropical regions,” said Lu.
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The article “Observation of large and all-season ozone losses over the tropics” is authored by Qing-Bin Lu. The article will appear in AIP Advances (DOI: 10.1063/5.0094629) on July 5, 2022. After that date, it can be accessed at http://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0094629.
ABOUT THE JOURNAL
AIP Advances is an open access journal publishing in all areas of physical sciences—applied, theoretical, and experimental. The inclusive scope of AIP Advances makes it an essential outlet for scientists across the physical sciences. See https://aip.scitation.org/journal/adv.
###
JOURNAL
AIP Advances
DOI
ARTICLE TITLE
Observation of large and all-season ozone losses over the tropics
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
5-Jul-2022
I smell Grant money 💰
Now we know the reason for a Big Tropical Extinction 🙂
Yeah, more scare-mongering. It’s a profitable industry. With all the ozone scaremongering, why don’t we EVER see a graph of UV trends at surfaces? Can’t be that hard to measure and trend.
How do we know this ozone depletion issue isn’t natural? How do they track CFC’s from Canada to Antarctica? I for one am not going to panic, and will go ahead with my Florida vacation.
We know it’s natural.
Ron, why not start questioning the concept, here applied, of “depletion”?
“Depletion” occurs when something loses a part of itself. But, since the discovery over Antarctica, it seems that the “ozone hole” is a rather permanent feature. It seems to me rather a “hole” in our knowledge (not due to “depletion” but to the fact that we don’t know everything).
It served its purpose. It was Al Gore’s branding as a serious politician concerned about the Environment ™ and Doing Something.
Now we should see that Al Gore failed in everything he did throughout his worthless life.
Al did not fail to accumulate money…and did not fail to fool millions that the there is an inconvenient truth….an earth out of kilter….a melting arctic…rising seas….OH THE HUMANITY!
The CRE mechanism mentioned in the article is a natural phenomenon – the fact that this discovery supports CRE and discredits the CFC/chemical theory is also helped by the fact that the Arctic/Antarctic holes have never closed over but change size seasonally – another part of the natural CRE mechanism.
So, the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer, and subsequent observing satellites all missed this, and none of the speculated consequences of low stratospheric-ozone have been reported over the last 40 years. This certainly seems like something that is in need of verification. It almost makes the case that the speculated consequences are a non-problem because TOA solar UV is much stronger than at the poles because the sun is directly overhead.
The paper explicitly said that they included data from the TOMS satellites. A quick skim found the authors’ explanation of why this hole was not noticed by the 4 TOMS satellites launched since 1978 or by the countless other observing platforms. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but I know little about this.
See the paragraph beginning with “Despite the rationales given above, the search for the tropical O3 hole is challenging. This is due to some intrinsic challenges.”
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0094629
Thank you for the link. It is getting late and I may have to return to this tomorrow for a deeper dive. However, my first response is that they ‘found’ a tropic ozone hole by redefining what constitutes a hole. The prevailing theory of Brewer-Dobson circulation [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer%E2%80%93Dobson_circulation ] would seem to explain their observations:
They clearly are not the same phenomena because the circumpolar vortex controls the initiation and destruction of the so-called Antarctic Ozone Hole. Their ‘hole’ is year round.
@Clyde – not necessarily a different phenomena. If you watch the time-lapse from the TOMS, you can see the ozone concentration building outside of the vortex as the hole forms, then dissipating as the hole breaks down. It looks to me as though the Brewer-Dobson circulation away from the tropics is in operation; the ozone just can’t “break through” the vortex.
More pronounced in the Southern Hemisphere, of course, but you can still make out the changes in the North Polar time-lapse.
Clyde …. I like your “they ‘found’ a tropic ozone hole by redefining what constitutes a hole”. In laymen’s terms they once again are moving the goal posts about 😉
Perhaps justified this time …. I read on to see what others say.
Yeah, doesn’t pass the smell test. 7 times larger but undetected for 35+ years. I know what that reminds me of.
Grammar professor is droning on about the English double negative, says some languages have a valid double negative, one even has a triple negative, but no language has a double positive.
Voice in the back drawls out, “Yeah, right.”
Ha!
The Scot’s have what I consider to be the best double positive. Imagine Billy Connolly
“Aye, that’ll be right”
If they know it was there in the 80s it must have been detected, right? They just didn’t think to mention it until now.
Kind of depends on your definitions really – there is no such thing as a ‘hole’ in the ozone layer; each one is an area of ‘thinning’ of the layer, not a complete absence of the layer over one spot. And then you’ve got to work out how much thinning of the ozone layer constitutes a ‘hole’ – my take is that this thinning over the tropics was noticed in the 1980’s but because it wasn’t as severe as the poles, and because the CFC/chemical theory didn’t support the idea of holes over the tropics, it was ignored.
If it is there “all season” wouldn’t that mean it is a permanent natural feature instead of a “hole”?
And only now coming to light. I am sore afraid!
The same as many other aspects of the Earth system that someone has tried to monetize (in alarmist virtue currency).
Yes. But nothing is wrong of being a “hole”, a permanent hole: look at your belt: the holes in it are permanent and are those holes that make it a (useful) belt.
Unfortunately, like a colander with holes in it, your analogy doesn’t hold water! The ozone layer is extremely useful, even critical for life on earth as long as there are no holes in it – put holes in it and it becomes useless. Luckily for us all there are no actual holes in the ozone layer – these are areas where the layer has become just a bit thinner than everywhere else, that’s all; t was 80’s alarmism that labelled them ‘holes’.
Since it’s been there since the 1980’s, apparently, then any ill effects should have been noticeable before now. BS meter pegged.
Despite CFCs having been banned for 30 years, the hole hasn’t decreased in size or intensity.
Yet more proof that CFCs were not the demon the media made them out to be.
Since Ozone has only been monitored since the 1980s, and only accurately can anything actually be said about what is happening in the long term.
Isn’t UV removed by breaking O3 into O2 + O? I know nothing of how atmospheric chemistry works but would have thought that spare single Oxygen atoms would combine as O2 rather than recreate O3. So increased solar UV should reduce O3 naturally. Or is that too simple?
In the 1930’s Dobson himself observed that Antarctic ozone levels diminished during the Austral winter. This was at least a decade before CFC’s were introduced Ozone depletion is a natural phenomenon which has been occurring for millions of years.
I read the same thing but got a different response – since this discovery supports the natural CRE theory and pokes holes in the idea of CFC’s being responsible, I find it plausible. The conclusions drawn by the media article based on the 80’s ozone alarmism may not be from the original study.
We’re all gonna fry!
a new boogie man ??
Is this a surprise….
This ‘new hole’, judging from the crappy low resolution image we see, is a column all around the globe and hanging over the Equator.
Being where there is a constant upwelling of the Tropical Convergence Zone – maybe it moves North/South a bit according to the time of year.
(The upwelling portion of a humongous circum-global Hadley Cell)
And that rising air, having been sucked into the rising column from land/sea off both sides of the equatot, will be loaded with all sorts of organic matter coming off plants and soils from either and both sides of the equator.
Classically Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs = scents and smells from plants) but also tiny fragments of solid stuff = the origin of a lot of the one billion fragments of viral & bacterial DNA that rain down on every square metre of earth every 24 hours.
And even though the sun is very strong as it shines on the equator and thus produces a lot lot of Ozone from the diatomic oxygen in the atmosphere, that organic matter (esp the VOCs) will be doing exactly what the plants that created them wanted them to do = destroy Ozone.
Before the Ozone destroys them
The Ozone will also attack the tiny fragments of more solid stuff and in its attempts to oxidise them, will destroy itself.
It’s perfect. So simple.
The upwelling of the ITCZ over the equator is pulling in and lifting large amounts of organic matter over the equator where this hole is – like a huge vacuum cleaner.
And as that stuff rises it meets Ozone and the two things cancel each other out – as intended by the plants that launched and created the VOCs ##
Isn’t Gaia a thing of beauty and truly wonderful.
PS It is the exact same principle as used inside Ultra Violet air fresheners, more oft than not found in public rest & powder rooms. Places where unpleasant odours of organic origin sometimes arise – more oft than not from the constant presence of water (damp) in such places.
The smelly air is constantly circulated through a filter and then a chamber where bright UV light is shone through it, smashing up the odiferous molecules.
If UV on its own isn’t strong enough, actual little Ozone generating machines can be brought in to get rid of really pungent things esp if there are a lot of them.
## We understand now why there gets to be a lot of Ozone (creating photochemical smog) in and around large cities
UV is constantly shining down and creating Ozone but in the large cities there are, by definition, very few plants to create any much VOC to consume the Ozone.
There did in fact used to be Ozone Removal Devices in all large cities, again by definition, and they came in the shape of cars and trucks.
In Ye Goode Olde Days, cars and truck were ‘leaky’ things and quite a lot of unburnt fuel was emitted from them.
And that escaped petrol/gasoline worked as a VOC, reacting with any Ozone there was around and wiping each other out in the process.
But Modern Cars are now mandated to be Ultra Clean and non-leaky, in order to prevent pollution.
And when they are Ultra Clean and non-polluting, the Ozone in large cities centres has nothing to work on and oxidise so its levels skyrocket.
Isn’t that just typical of Modern Government – go in to solve a problem and actually make it worse.
Yet the cars and their drivers **still** get the blame. sigh.
OK, breathing in petrol and oil fumes is not very nice but I’d rather that than breathe in air containing **any** amount of Ozone.
Funnily enough, all the plants of this world agree with me.
High Five Gaia
I’ve been comparing my total ozone measurements over my Texas site since 5 Feb 1990 with all the TOMS and the following ozone instruments. I have found various errors in their measurements, including the first TOMS aboard the Nimbus 7 satellite (which became my first publication in Nature). While there was a sharp ozone decline after the Pinatubo eruption, ozone is gradually approaching its pre-Pinatubo status. The “ozone hole” described in this new paper is beyond my understanding of ozone measurement science. If significant, it should have become apparent long ago in satellite imagery. A plot of the first 30 years of my ozone measurements by TOPS and Microtops II is in my recent paper in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society entitled: “A 30-Year Climatology (1990-2020) of Aerosol Optical Depth and Total Column Water Vapor and Ozone over Texas.” (Easy to find by searching on: BAMS Mims 30-Year). My ozone measurements are within 2% of those by the world standard ozone instrument (Dobson 83), which I calibrated for NOAA at the Mauna Loa Observatory in 2016 (a 64-day project). It was first calibrated against Dobson 83 in 1997 and the algorithm has never been revised.
Anything from Du Pont,
Michael VK5ELL
boy did you nail it.
dupont, r12, patent expiration.
This ozone hole, according to the article, has been there “since the 1980s”, “may cause a great global concern”, “was not predicted by conventional photochemical models”, and “observed data agree well with the cosmic-ray-driven electron reaction (CRE) model and strongly indicate the identical physical mechanism working for both Antarctic and tropical ozone holes.”. Naturally, because we had no means of measuring ozone before 1980, we have no way of knowing whether the ozone holes were there earlier.
And why the “great global concern”? We have an admission that the photochemical models as used to impose the Montreal Protocol are useless, that the Tropical and Antarctic ozone holes are likely to be cosmic-ray-driven not CFC-driven, and we have absolutely no idea what happens next. The paper says “it can lead to increases in ground-level ultraviolet radiation”, but whatever it does has already been done and we have been living with it for decades because it has been there since at least 1980. In addition, we have absolutely no idea whether the Montreal Protocol can ever make a difference, or indeed whether anything we do can make a difference.
It seems that the role of “science” nowadays is to create panic not knowledge.
Something that rarely gets mentioned is that there are invariably semi-circular rings of anomalously high ozone sitting outside the circumpolar vortex, which appear to be an accumulation of ozone originating in the tropics, and transported by the Brewer-Dobson circulation cells. Ozone is metatstable, and even in the absence of CFCs or anything else such as cosmic rays, will decay; it has a relatively short half-life. Unless the decayed ozone is replaced, one can expect the concentration to decline. When the circumpolar vortex breaks up in the Spring, the air masses with high concentrations move into the ‘hole’ and bring the ozone concentration up to normal levels.
However, there is no evidence that it has.
“Although bans on such chemicals have helped slow ozone depletion, evidence suggests ozone depletion persisted.”
Feynman would tell these folk that the “theoretical CFC cause” has therefore been falsified as objective scientists have been trying to tell ideologue ‘scientists’ in recent years. The CO2 control knob of global warming has similarly been falsified and even admitted to indirectly when NASA’s Gavin Schmidt said models have been running “a way too hot and we don’t know why?” Well, yes you do know why Gavin. CO2 content in the atmosphere is galloping unabated and we havent had significant warming in a quarter century.
Clinging to CFCs as “helping” a bit at the poles but a completely different cause is acting in the new discovery, is a Lewis Carroll believing in six impossible things before breakfast. Here is the ‘tell’: CFC’s fill the bill because attributing it to sinful man is what they want. Exploding stars that occurred millions of years ago is no fun for marxist demagogues here. Ditto natural variation as the dominant cause of temperature change and temperature change causes outgassing of CO2 from oceans which dwarfs our modest addition to the atmosphere in a warming period.
That gogues can’t bear to think about the resulting joyous Great Greening of the planet and burgeoning harvests that rising CO2 brings, let alone erasure of poverty through use of abundant reliable energy, points to their horror that man’s use of FF is so net beneficial that it makes any possible harms small.
Fortunately, our leaders, although amazingly stupid aren’t brave. This nightmare is clearly going to end but their is an awful social, economic and psychological mess to clean up.
I have never understood why, when the bulk of CFCs are from the northern hemisphere, there should be a large CFC caused Ozone depletion in the South Pole. Logic would suggest that it should be at the North Pole if anywhere. I believe that the Ozone hole is a natural phenomenon and has been there for millenia before we “discovered” a man made Ozone hole.
‘Holes’ plural. While there is a permanent ‘hole’ (actually a thinning, not a hole) over the Antarctic, there is a corresponding one over the Arctic as well that is smaller and fluctuates with the seasons.
Logically, the hole over the Arctic should be larger than the Antarctic then. Presumably the fluctuations are related to the tilt of the earth and the degradation of ozone by sunlight.
Land masses and mountains disrupt the vortex formation in NH. No land in SH allows a strong vortex, creates a blocking barrier hence ozone hole persists.
Enter Chicken Little.
Yawn/offs
so 40yrs or more and they JUST found it? suuure
and obviously its made stuff all difference, crops n the rest been doing as well as normally
but now? another fearfest raveup by the (should be) committed warmist clownshow
so much REAL trouble and this is the least of our worries
Wow, all those “bad effects” and yet we haven’t actually seen any evidence of them despite the existence of this latest “ozone hole” for FORTY YEARS.
Maybe the “bad effects” are hiding in the oceans, like the “missing heat.”
Re: What was known about atmospheric ozone an harm from UV in the early days, the author’s 47 references err by omission of Gore A, Earth in the Balance, 1992. Samples –
P 85, school children required to wear hats and scarves, UV radiation.. Patagonia, hunters find blind rabbits, fishermen blind salmon.
P 29 600% increase in atmospheric chlorine in last 40 years causes more incoming UV, will harm life on Earth
P 85 more. Ozone increases UV hitting plants, grow less, consume less CO2, more CO2 in air, more global warming.
This is but a tiny sample of the nonsense.
When I searched the lit for data on incoming I
UV in late 1980s, I bcould not find any. Geoff s
Anyone notice this:
“Lu’s discovery builds on previous studies of the CRE-initiated ozone-depleting mechanism that he and his colleagues originally proposed about two decades ago.”
It’s all his fault……
That’s a Lu Lu Quin-Bin!
Someone help this
Ignorant trucker out. He says: “The depletion of the ozone layer can lead to increased ground-level UV radiation, …”
So he he saying he is not sure about the physics? It would seem to me that this should be absolutely known as a fact. If it is not, then why is it not?
In the very beginning, the claim was that lower ozone ‘might’ lead to increased surface UV, which ‘might’ result in cataracts and/or skin cancer. That is the necessary prologue to obtain research funding. However, there were few studies (Forrest Mims probably being one of the few.) actually measuring surface UV.
What isn’t discussed is what happens when UV-C makes it through the stratosphere. It is reasonable to assume that it will create ozone at lower altitudes, which will have a short half-life, but there is plenty of oxygen to keep making more ozone.
Note that these kinds of scare stories for Antarctica don’t take into account that the sun is low on the horizon (equivalent to mid-latitude sunrise) with a long slant range, absorbing and scattering the UV so that the absolute intensity is rather low. They focus on the equivalent Dobson Units, not the UV flux. So, it sounds scary if there is little ozone to absorb the UV. However, that long slant-range of UV means it passes through stratosphere outside the ‘hole’ before reaching the ground. And, there are usually abnormally high concentrations of ozone immediately outside the circumpolar vortex. The essential point is, the sun never gets directly above the so-called ‘hole,’ yet it is treated as though it does.
Whether through incompetence or malfeasance, the complete story isn’t being told.
Thanks for the answer. So an Ozone hole in the atmosphere, even at the equator does not necessarily mean increased UV at the surface because more Ozone will be naturally produced at lower levels and the radiation reaches there.
This study says that there has been an heretofore undetected ozone hole over the tropics for 40 years….
If it did not exist previously, we should then be able to detect the deleterious effects of the hole in the real world — ramping up over time since the 1980s.
Has anyone seen any such evidence?
Supposedly the Antarctic hole existed because the air was isolated by circular flow around the continent. That does not happen in the tropics so maybe the whole story is out the window.
Also, natural vatiability is not depletion. I am reminded of when we discovered that the Gulf Stream flow varies by over 30%.
From the above article by the AIP:
“Lu’s observation of the ozone hole comes as a surprise to his peers in the scientific community, since it was not predicted by conventional photochemical models.”
Two comments in response:
1) The science on climate was “settled” long ago.
2) It’s models all the way down.
“agree well“, “Strongly indicate“, They don’t have a clue but they’re happy to speculate and issue conclusions.
“This study was motivated by the following observations: first, the author9
Say what!? Let’s follow the information, first a CRE model, from that model to a new ozone hole theory and conclusion…
“reported observations of an “ozone mini hole” over the Tibetan Plateau (29.6° N, 91.1° E) at times with colder winters in the 1990s–2000s, which is located at the edge of the tropics. Polvani et al.26
observed significant O3 losses at the altitude of 18.5 km or 67/68 hPa over the tropics (30°S–30°N) from 1979 to 1997 from three independent datasets. Newton et al.27
We believe, therefore it must be so…
Another researcher that can find and see invisible things…
So, there’s a lot more energy reaching the surface in the tropics than what’s previously thought? And this energy might explain the miniscule temperature increase? And its not included in the models?
Relative to 1960’s Ozone measurements…..wow in the 1960’s they had to take sample bottles up in aircraft….the real problem here is the 1960’s data….
The real problem is always in the incentives, whether in ozone hollering and climatheology.
But technical problem seems to be piling together data from wild variety of methods as if it was all of the same nature, with some more “adjustments” and/or cherry picking when it clearly does not match.
The article never mentions whether this “tropical ozone hole” is over land or water. A large fraction of the “tropics” (the band between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn) is part of the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans.
While a depletion of the ozone layer over the tropics would allow more UV rays from the sun to reach the surface, this would only affect people and animals living on land, while the oceans would likely reflect most of the incoming UV rays.
Is there any reason why the “tropical ozone hole” would be concentrated over the land areas of northern South America, central Aftrica, India, southeast Asia and/or northern Australia, or would it tend to be blown around by the winds of the stratosphere?
Making people scared of the sun has led to a lot of vitamin D deficiency. This is just more of the same.
If so, why it’s announced only now?
Clyde Spencer said, aptly
“my first response is that they ‘found’ a tropic ozone hole by redefining what constitutes a hole”
Did another DuPont patent for refrigerant expire ?