Sun Storms Deplete Ozone, Too 467
An anonymous reader writes "Turns out the sun itself zaps the ozone that protects us from the sun. LiveScience is reporting that the record-setting string of solar storms around Halloween in 2003 (including an X28 flare) set off a cascade of events that depleted the ozone layer over the Arctic in early 2004. In a nutshell, more nitrogen was created, and an unusually strong vortex of high-speed winds aloft brought the nitrogen down, where it contributed to cutting ozone by 60 percent over the polar region. In January, the a European scientist warned residents of the far north to basically stay out of the sun. While chlorofluorocarbons are still blamed for ozone depletion, scientists said this study shows they don't properly account for the sun's impact."
CAUTION! (Score:5, Funny)
Solar Radiation quite calm (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Solar Radiation quite calm (Score:5, Informative)
O2 + UV(180-240nm) -> O* + O*
O* + O2 -> O3
Its famed ability to absorb UV happens this way:
O3 + UV(200-320nm) -> O* + O2
O* + O2 -> O3 (again)
and this is the normal "sink" reaction, which removes the ozone-producing O* radicals from circulation:
O* + O* -> O2
(Another normal "sink" is O* + O3 -> 2O2.)
Normally both the "source" and "sink" reactions are happening at once, so that the concentrations of O3 relative to O2 are at an equilibrium- as much ozone is being produced as destroyed at any given moment.
This is the chlorine breakdown path:
Cl* + O3 -> ClO* + O2
ClO* + ClO* -> Cl2O2
Cl2O2 + UV -> 2Cl* + O2
overall: 2O3 -> 3O2
Cl* is a chlorine radical formed when CFCs break down under intense UV. The chlorine reactions happen at the surface of certain types of ice crystals that form at -80 degrees C. That's where we get the "ozone holes" from.
The overall reaction is an efficient ozone sink, with a rate of reaction 1500 times greater than the one with O*. This pushes the O3/O2 equilibrium downward. More ozone is continually being produced by sunlight hitting O2, but since the O3 is disappearing faster, the result is a much lower concentration of O3 relative to O2 than if no Cl* were present.
This article is so dumbed down as to be worthless. It blames "nitrogen gas", which is a load of crap. This story is about nitric oxide (NO) catalysis. This is a well known phenomenon. In addition to chlorine and nitric oxide, fluorine and bromine can also catalyze the breakdown of ozone. This is how nitrogen oxide breaks down ozone:
NO + O3 -> NO2 + O2
O2 + UV(180-240nm) -> O* + O*
NO2 + O* -> NO + O2 (as opposed to O* + O2 -> O3 which would regenerate the ozone)
Similar reactions happen in reverse near the ground in cities, where the NO2 that emerges from tailpipes results in ground-level ozone.
Normally there's much more NO than chlorine in the stratosphere, although the chlorine reactions are more efficient. Weather patterns above the poles have always brought a steady stream of NO down from the ionosphere to the stratosphere since the beginning of time. In other words the historic, preindustrial "normal" equilibrium concentration of ozone already accounts for what the sun does in a normal solar year. The solar storms of 2003 created an abnormal surge of NO, so we saw ozone drop markedly in spring 2004 relative to 2003. But 2003 levels were already depressed, and we had normal NO levels then.
NO and chlorine are both gradually cleared from the stratosphere by formation of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid respectively. So the supplies of these harmful catalysts have to be regenerated, either by the sun or us. But NO turns to nitric acid after only a couple days. A CFC molecule survives an average of 100 years before degrading to elemental chlorine (destroying ozone) and then HCl. Drops in ozone levels from solar activity can be expected to be transient, lasting a year or two at most. Drops in ozone levels from CFCs are essentially permanent for the rest of our lives. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking all our problems are the sun's fault.
Re:Solar Radiation quite calm (Score:4, Interesting)
Enjoy,
Re:Solar Radiation quite calm (Score:3, Interesting)
These press releases are always indecipherable. Which is frustrating, because we're not all scientifically dumb and some of us would like to know what's going on. You also have to be very careful when writing a press release on a topic like this. Soon we'll be hearing over and over how CFCs have been vindicated, a
Re:CAUTION! (Score:3, Funny)
But finally, a legitimate reason to wear the tinfoil hat!
My question: (Score:5, Insightful)
In January, residents of the far north have no choice but to stay out of the sun.
No wonder no one took him seriously.
Re:My question: (Score:3, Insightful)
Above the arctic circle, the sun stays down for months; coincidently, it's down for exactly those months that this sort of problem can arise.
Below the arctic circle, you get a few hours of twilight around noon. The sun never gets more than a few degrees above the southern horizon, and so the sunlight is being filtered through many miles of southern atmosphere, probably including quite a bit of ozone.
No wonder no one to
Since the dawn of time (Score:5, Funny)
That's it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's it (Score:3, Funny)
Nah, screw Microsoft, get a Mac instead.
Now I know everybody makes jokes about the Mac's ozone only having one Oxygen atom, but you can easily buy a third-party molecule with the three Oxygen atoms you're used to.
The sun is trying to kill us; (Score:5, Funny)
Nuke the sun.
Re:The sun is trying to kill us; (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The sun is trying to kill us; (Score:5, Funny)
Nonono, we need to invade
Re:The sun is trying to kill us; (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The sun is trying to kill us; (Score:3, Funny)
And you call yourself a geek! It's people like you that makes me wish I had been born a man.
Re:The sun is trying to kill us; (Score:2)
[PREDICTION] (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:[PREDICTION] (Score:2, Insightful)
Show me a 'humans cause global warming' case that doesn't use the deceptive hockey stick or only take data starting at a local minimum right around the time of the industrial revolution (remember, we're still about a degree C below the Medieval peak) and I'll listen. Eagerly. Up until now, it's all been smoke and mirrors with a poli
Re:[PREDICTION] (Score:2)
As for the medieval peak, there's some dispute over that, but even the pro-medievil peak people [climate2003.com]have it as less than 0.1 degree warmer.
Re:[PREDICTION] (Score:2)
Re:[PREDICTION] (Score:2)
Not evil. Numbers, my friend, numbers. If one person shits into a lake, well, nothing happens. If 6 billion people shit into a lake (heck, pick any sea for that matter!), virtually all the life in it will be affected.
A city of 1 million can do whatever to *try* to screw up the planet and it will not happen. A pop
Re:[PREDICTION] (Score:2)
Re:[PREDICTION] (Score:2)
Re:[PREDICTION] (Score:2)
Re:[PREDICTION] (Score:2)
Come to think of it, methane is considered a greenhouse gas, depending on where it is, right? Shouldn't there be big ozone holes over Hollywood, D.C., and a Kinko's in Texas?
Methane (Score:4, Informative)
Serious street cred for chlorofluorocarbons. (Score:4, Funny)
Of course... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh No! (Score:2, Funny)
Global Warming is a serious threat. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's interesting, though, that with all the talk from liberal groups like the Sierra Club about how industry is the culprit, that we come to find out that it might be the SUN ITSELF that's depleting the ozone layer! In the wake of the recent CBS debacle, maybe it's time we started viewing such activists with a more suspicious eye.
Maybe it's time we stopped looking for more problems on earth, and start looking to controlling threats from outer space -- threats like solar storms and asteroids. With our current level of intercelestial preparedness, it would take only one oversized meteor or a solar storm to fry this intergalactic backwater we call earth to a crisp. We need to step up efforts to expand orbital missile defense and lunar and martian defense outposts or we'll have only ourselves to blame when some freak cosmic event destroys life as we know it.
Re:Global Warming is a serious threat. (Score:5, Informative)
- Ozone (a molecule with three oxygen atoms) can be broken back down into O2 + O. Like all chemical reactions, this process goes both ways: free oxygen atoms combine into O2, or with O2 to form O3. Ozone in the stratosphere undergoes this process naturally while absorbing UV from the sun.
- Breaking oxygen to form ozone is a slow process as it absorbs energy. Breaking ozone to form oxygen progesses at a much higher rate.
- There's a LOT of oxygen in the atmosphere. The stratosphere reaches an equilibrium where a relatively small amount of ozone breaking down quickly is balanced by a lot more oxygen being photolyzed slowly.
- CFCs break down into chlorine, which catalyzes the O3 -> O2 + 0 reaction. This causes the ozone depletion direction to increase its rate, without an increase in ozone production. Thus, the total amount of ozone will decrease until a new equilibrium is reached at a lower level of ozone.
- Note that the chlorine is a catalyst, and thus is not consumed in the reaction. One chlorine atom can destroy hundreds of thousands of ozone molecules while it's in the stratosphere. So, a relatively small amount of CFCs has a much larger effect on the amount of ozone.
- Cold temperatures favor the ozone depletion direction of the reaction. This is why you see the hole appear first over the southern polar regions. That's the coldest place. Increases in the size of the hole and more northly locations indicate ever dropping levels of ozone across the atmosphere. If you think of the ozone as water in the ocean, then the ozone hole is an island sticking up out of water. Draining water from the entire ocean makes the island bigger, but that doesn't mean the water is only being lost at the island.
- "Ozone depletion deniers" used to exist, much like those that currently object to global warming. They had various objections, such as no known mechanism to transport CFCs released at ground level to the stratosphere. You also used to see a lot of objections that have familiar analogs in the global warming debate -- for instance, suggestion of natural sources such as chlorine from sea salt rather than CFCs. Satellite observations have observed tagged chlorine atoms from CFCs in the stratosphere. We know it's human-produced stuff up there causing problems.
- The chlorine will eventually be removed from the stratosphere as it combines with something other than ozone, though this process isn't as fast as we would like. By ceasing use of CFCs, the chlorine derived from them will eventually go away, and the ozone layer will reestablish at the old equilibrium we used to know and love. Changing human behavior can fix this problem as well as cause it.
Re:Global Warming is a serious threat. (Score:3, Informative)
One correction:
Cold temperatures favor the ozone depletion direction of the reaction. This is why you see the hole appear first over the southern polar regions.
Perhaps, but don't forget that ozone is created by UV hitting O2. In the polar regions in winter (when the hole happens) there is no sun, and thus no ozone creation. Those natural processes you have cited are all there working to destroy ozone, but nothing is creating it at the time.
Re:Global Warming is a serious threat. (Score:5, Informative)
Antarctica seems to be cooling, and its coastal ice pack is thicker than ever.
I do hope you're right about global warming, because global cooling looks at least as probable, given the few hard facts we actually know. Global warming would clearly leave the world a better place for all of us (especially the world's poor and hungry!), with more rainfall, warmer winters, more food, and so on. Global cooling, on the other hand, would probably kill more of the poor folks in Africa than the muslims' genocide and AIDS and Kyoto all put together.
I've got some links to facts and discussion of glaciers, ice packs, temperature series and so on at http://geocities.com/nelstomlinson/globalwarming.h tml [geocities.com]
Somehow We'll Blame America for the Sun (Score:2, Funny)
Aurora and such (Score:5, Informative)
For information on when flares and aurora are possible, see the following pages:
aurora alert- http://www.xs4all.nl/~carlkop/auralert.html/ [xs4all.nl]
for more of a daily "this is cool stuff in space" see
SpaceWeather.com http://spaceweather.com/ [spaceweather.com]
Fun Stuff.
Weapons of Mass Destruction. (Score:5, Funny)
This evil dictator has created weapons of mass destruction, and has used them against nearby planets. A few years ago, we had them open their weapon factories to us so we could be sure they destroyed them all. But it has now come to our attention that they have weapons that could destroy the entire world.
We can NOT stand by and let them do this. We must unite and attack them before they can destroy us. Anyone who is not with us, is with them. There is no other choice.
The Earth must attack Sol.
Re:Weapons of Mass Destruction. (Score:2)
WMD my ass, he just wants to build solar panels there so our country can get the sunlight first.
I Concur! (Score:2)
Re:Weapons of Mass Destruction. (Score:3, Funny)
Recent events have showed us that we MUST cause a regime change for the Solarians. No longer must they live under the titanical rule of Sunddam Hydrogen.
Oh, sure, you only want invade the places that are rich in energy sources. What if the people of Pluto were being crushed by a brutal dictator? Huh? Huh? Oh, wait - maybe they have plutonium...
Who'da thunk it? (Score:5, Insightful)
This has been my biggest gripe with environmental groups. Almost none of them take into account the fact that the Earth has radically "re-organized" itself (for lack of a better word) several times BEFORE man ever came along, and we don't yet understand how or why. We've had several radical changes in global temperature, sea levels, atmosphere composition, etc, most before man ever walked the Earth.
Re:Who'da thunk it? (Score:3, Informative)
yes, but significant climate change is occuring now in mere generations rather than over k's of years.
This article [le.ac.uk] is more to do with global warming (as opposed to ozone depletion), but it gives a good perspective.
my response (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not ok from a human standpoint for the Earth to radically re-organize itself now.
Really, we should do everything in our power to keep the Earth rather like it has been for the last 10000 years.
Re:my response (Score:2, Insightful)
Really, we should do everything in our power...
When it comes to the earth, it's climate and other unpredictable fluid dynamics-type universal (chaos theory, anyone?) issues, we have no power. Get used to it.
"Think globally, act locally" is mostly a leftist political meme, not a realistic point of view and should be replaced by, "Think rationally, act reasonably."
Re:my response (Score:2)
This is the problem: We may not be physically capable of getting used to it. That is why we must attempt to prevent climate change --- not because Gaea will be unhappy, or because the holistic chi imbalance will desync the natural biorhythms of the universe, but because if things get too bad (where "bad" is defined by humans), we may not be able to
Re:my response (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not ok from a human standpoint for the Earth to radically re-organize itself now."
Really? Why? The most radical reorg came about when a strange new bacteria discovered photosynthensis. This little organism was wildly successful. It and it's descendent set about polluting the Earth's atmosphere with a previously poisonous gas - oxygen. This gas exterminated many of the species that came before, but h
Re:Who'da thunk it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's the anti-environmental lobby that latches onto the natural cycles argument, using it as an excuse to do nothing. Because doing something usually costs them money, or results in lawsuits, or whatever.
Environmentalists understand that there are natural cycles but are concerned that the natural cycles are being upset by human action in ways that will be very difficult to reverse the longer the upset occurs.
The Sun's involvement in ozone depletion has been a fixture of atmospheric conditions for millions of years, and has reached equillibrium. Inject human-generated CFC's and the equillibrium is upset. We can't change the Sun, but we can change the human factors.
Re:Who'da thunk it? (Score:5, Interesting)
They're not using it an excuse to do nothing, intead they are using it as an excuse not to crawl back into the cro magnon cave the crawled out of! Environmentalists are against technological progress. When Al Gore advocated banning the internal combustion engine he was proposing just that. Gasoline engines may not be perfect, but until we have viable replacements for them, banning them is not an intelligent solution.
There is not "anti-environmental" lobby, but there certainly is an "anti-environmentalist" lobby. Like it or not, environmentalism is a specific political ideology. Not everyone who wants to protect the environment is an environmentalist. Not everyone who wants to eliminate pollution is an environmentalist. Pretending that wanting to clean up the Earth is environmentalism is as silly as pretending that wanting to eliminate poverty is socialism.
How to win an argument, in two steps. (Score:3)
(2) Defeat this argument.
Quick, and easy!
Re:Who'da thunk it? (Score:2, Interesting)
phew (Score:3, Insightful)
The sun creates ozone, too! (Score:5, Informative)
High in the atmosphere, some oxygen (O2) molecules absorbed energy from the Sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays and split to form single oxygen atoms. These atoms combined with remaining oxygen (O2) to form ozone (O3) molecules, which are very effective at absorbing UV rays. The thin layer of ozone that surrounds Earth acts as a shield, protecting the planet from irradiation by UV light...Ozone is produced naturally in the stratosphere when highly energetic solar radiation strikes molecules of oxygen, O2, and cause the two oxygen atoms to split apart in a process called photolysis.
Linkage [theozonehole.com]
So, yeah, the sun is the bad guy, but really, the sun is the good guy, too. =)
Re:The sun creates ozone, too! (Score:2)
Without the prehistoric fitoplancton creating oxygen as a byproduct of their metabolism, there wouldn't be oxygen in the atmosphere in the first place - ergo, no ozone.
Meanwhile, greedy corporations destroy the ecosystem, the CO2 production is going overboard - who's the bad guy now?
Not much of an effect in the long run (Score:3, Informative)
yeah, it's all the sun's fault... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:yeah, it's all the sun's fault... (Score:2)
Re:yeah, it's all the sun's fault... (Score:2)
Re:yeah, it's all the sun's fault... (Score:3, Funny)
Not only did the farmers cover up (Score:2)
Re:yeah, it's all the sun's fault... (Score:3, Insightful)
The not-so-quick reply is that people are living longer today too, rather than dying long before melanoma could develop. As more people survive lesser diseases such as the flu, more will di
global warming (Score:2)
El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer (Score:2)
The more things change,the more they stay the same (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to my knowledge or in any scholarly tract I have ever seen.
It took until NOW for someone to think, "Hmmm... maybe the sun has something to do with the ozone layer..."
The idea that a dynamic world affecting power source could create AND destroy isn't new. Witness the ring of fire in the Pacific Ocean. Subduction destroys, magma release renews.
One wonders how any could miss the fact that the known ozone depletion spots happen to coincide with the planet's magnetic poles and thus where loads of solar charged particle radiation ends up, having to pass through the same ozone that the sun itself created.
This isn't a troll. This is simple exasperation at the endless "human kind is responsible for all ills that plague the world". I'm sure superstitious islanders of the nineteenth century who survived Krakatoa agreed with that, but it ain't necessarily so.
There seems to be some obsession among some people with the idea that everything should always remain as it is right now despite the fact that our own science proves to us that the world was different in multiple different ways over vast periods of time before we were ever a kink in the dna and logically will be short of our intelligent intervention and massive effort.
Re:The more things change,the more they stay the s (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason the ozone holes form above the poles and not directly above the CFC source regions is due to the very cold atmospheric conditions at the poles.
Source [cam.ac.uk]
It should serve as a lesson to you that your actions can have effects beyond your backyard.
Most scientists I know recognise that there are "natural" components to phenomena such as the ozone holes (eg volcanic aerosoles) and global warming. The concern is that human activities may exacerbate the effects and that the rate of change may be much faster than would otherwise be the case.
If you ever wonder what affect humanity's actions have on the world and our society, look at the ruined land due to salinity in Australia.
Re:The more things change,the more they stay the s (Score:3)
All we have is 2 decades of data which is like sampling 1 person on this planet and assuming their opinion represents everybody. In summary we know nothing, and claiming that the hole's current growth is being solely caused by
Global Warming and the Ozone Hole (Score:4, Informative)
Sombody please explain to the poster... (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody please explain to the poster how elements work.
Is it just me or... (Score:4, Insightful)
"There's no definitive proof that smoking causes lung cancer..." Remember that one?
Hmmm.
We ain't going to Mars until we fix what we've done to this planet!
Stevo
Re:Is it just me or... (Score:2, Insightful)
Is it just me or does it sound like religion? (Score:4, Informative)
It means that yes, you're _supposed_ to question everything, be it the theory of relativity, or gravity, or global warming theories. That's what science is all about. Trying to see if you can improve the existing understanding of the world, instead of joining the lemming parrade.
The moment you've found absolute truths, evidence be damned, that's no longer science. That's _religion_.
It doesn't matter if it's about Christ, or lung cancer, or global warming. The moment you have your absolute truth and don't need no stinkin' scientists telling you about experimental evidence, or worse yet start accusing them of hidden agendas or being the enemy... congrats, you've reinvented the Inquisition. What lies that-a-way is not science, it's not environmentalism, it's religion.
Why bother warning us? (Score:2, Insightful)
In a nutshell, more nitrogen was created... (Score:2)
Wait! (Score:3, Insightful)
Before anyone claims that humans are no longer the cause for the ozone hole, please realize the depletion was caused because of CFCs. Ozone is depleted as a result of many things, CFC is one of the key components and is a non-natural factor. The increased UV and polar vortices that were a result of the solar activity along with a colder winter increased the depletion, but, it would never have happened at above natural levels without CFCs.
Please read: A simple explanation [slashdot.org] that I posted a while back and a more complete explanation [cam.ac.uk] on how the ozone hole is formed.
These chemical processes are extremely well known: We know that CFCs are the cause, we know that there are a lot of them near the ozone layer, we know they are man made. Therefore, we know we are the cause. All that these researchers found out is that these conditions will speed up the process, not that they are the cause of the process.
It is unfortunate that even with the CFC ban it will take 100-200 years for the ozone hole to repair itself to pre-industrial era levels...
Patrik
"In the long run"... (Score:2)
Individuals aside, I think this whole planet is going to be toast (literally), in the long run, courtesy of our friendly neighborhood star. Now there is irony for you. Think about it. (But not too much, if you are really smart, life is even more of a bitch than if you are not.)
Remember, kids, this has all been covered before, see Existentialis
Poor understanding. (Score:5, Informative)
The atmosphere is a very complex thing in both composition and behavior. For purposes of this slashdot discussion, though, about the only important thing about its behavior is that different gases exist in different compositions in different parts of the atmosphere, and these different gases block and reflect different frequencies of radiation. (Most of these gases exist in a cycle, where they are emitted out of the earth, usually by volcanic sources, then slowly fall out of the atmosphere, and are subducted back into the earth, where they're eventually re-emitted.) There are two specific important aspects to this. The first is a layer of ozone which blocks certain higher frequencies of incoming radiation from the sun. The second is a layer of "greenhouse gases" which block a lower frequency. This lower frequency of radiation is not so much important coming from the sun; however, it is important because when radiation hits the earth, it is absorbed and re-emitted as "longwave radiation"-- and this radiation has a frequency such that it is partially blocked by the greenhouse gases, keeping it inside the earth. All of this is very convenient for the forms of life currently common on earth, since the higher frequencies the ozone keeps out are harmful to this life and the lower frequencies the greenhouse gases keep in provide useful heat, keeping the earth from just being a big ball of ice like mars is. Perhaps if the atmosphere were different, life would have evolved differently and less or more heat, or more high-frequency radiation, would not be a bother. But it is the forms of life that live on earth right now we care about, specifically humans.
The ozone layer is the important thing as far as this article goes. The problem is that the ozone layer has been depleting in recent years, starting around World War II, and accelerating in the 60s and 70s. In recent decades the problem has become so bad that the ozone layer actually is developing holes in it, around the north and south poles, mainly the south. This depletion has corresponded with increased levels of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. Chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, come from a number of sources. For example volcanoes put out CFCs in great quantity every time they erupt. When placed in the vicinity of certain gases-- specifically the gases found in the ozone layer of the atmosphere-- these CFCs catalyze chemical reactions which destroy ozone, converting it to oxygen. An individual CFC molecule, when it gets into the ozone layer, will thus cause this process pretty much continuously, until like all gases it falls out of the atmosphere. There isn't particularly any question about this, as these processes are easily experimentally reproduced. The other thing that isn't particularly a question is that the increased CFC levels from WWII on were a result of human industrial processes. CFC outputs by human industry after its first uses dwarfed the natural sources of same, leading to a continuous and steady increase in cfc levels far beyond what atmospheric processes are accustomed to. By 1987 it became clear that this human CFC output was having a negative impact on the ozone layer, leading to the adopting of the Montreal Protocol, a treaty which drastically reduced human CFC output with the goal of eliminating human CFC production entirely worldwide by 2010. The impact on CFC levels of the montreal protocol was dramatic and immediate; you can see here yourself [monash.edu.au] that as soon as the significant human CFC sources stopped at the end of the 80s, the steady increase in CFC levels flattened out and became constant. (I am afraid this graph comes from a
Re:One more reason... (Score:5, Interesting)
How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate? [sciam.com]. It's a controversial theory how humans have been altering the global climate for thousands of years, since the invention of clear-cutting forests for agricultural purposes. I found it a very interesting read, especially the theory presented by the author (here comes a troll modding for even parroting this theory) that early humans have actually caused us to avoid an ice age because of their global warming activities.
Predating agriculture (Score:2)
However to say that we should not act because there is no proof is not wise. By the time we have proof it will be to late. Rather, we should act on the best, and most conservative, evidence of the day.
Analogy: Go run around in the street with your eyes shut. Just because you can't see any cars does not mean this is a safe thing to do.
Re:Predating agriculture (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, of course, you aren't interested in the best, most conservative evidence, because you are all for doing something, anything right now, immediately before we all suffer catastrophic apocalypse.
So much for taking the best, most conservative evidence.
Global warming is nothing more than the latest tool of the ever with us tyrants to put t
Helping to prove his point? (Score:2)
Note that it is one of many. As gambit3 pointed out, nobody is confident enough to present anything as fact.
Re:One more reason... (Score:4, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One more reason... (Score:2)
"Do you ever wonder where all the farts go?... They go into the atmosphere and form the 'fart zone.' It's just above the ozone layer. This, people, is why we MUST PROTECT THE OZONE LAYER!" - Steve Martin
Re:One more reason... (Score:2)
Agreed. We need to be conservative about the introduction of potential solutions as well as the introduction of potential problems so we can take the opportunity to measure their true impact.
Changing 10 things at once to solve a problem makes it impossible to determine which was the right one (if not a combination). Likewise several substances with the potential to cause X
Re:One more reason... (Score:2)
You're wrong.
Re:One more reason... (Score:2)
Yes, and they've been banned for a (relatively) short period of time. The question is did this "recovery" have more to do with the sun than with our ban of CFCs?
The ozone layer has recovered??? (Score:2, Insightful)
It claims: The ozone layer has recovered since CFCs were banned.
My point is we don't really know. Nobody has been watching the thing long enough to understand it's habbits. Have we been monitoring it for a full solar cycle (only with ground level UV tests if that). It could all just be noise. Ozone holes could be normal, or they could be much worse then previously realized. You do realize most stratospheric ozone is produced by UV hitting O2? You'd kind of expect hole
CFC's rarely meet ozone in the atmosphere (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One more reason... (Score:2, Insightful)
The following are facts:
CFCs, when subjected to UV, destroy ozone.
CFCs are present at ozone-layer altitudes. This has been detected by (among others) the NASA ER-2 high-altitude aircraft.
Not to mention the fact that the ozone layer has recovered since CFCs were banned.
This is not something which is up for any kind of real debate, unless you want to revert to pseudoscience. This is not the global-warming issue. This is something substantially different a
Re:One more reason... (Score:5, Informative)
And what does Global Warming have to do with ozone-layer depletion?
These are two completely seperate phenomena.
quite simply, it's because most people (scientists included) quite simply don't have enough information to say for a FACT that THIS or THAT is causing ozone depletion
Wrong. CFCs do cause ozone depletion. That is established. The mechanisms of how CFCs catalyze the degradation of ozone into oxygen are fully understood. It is something you can easily reproduce in a laboratory. This has been done many times. A Nobel prize [nobelprize.org] was awarded for this. They don't give out Nobels for things which aren't considered to be well-established.
You are confusing this issue with global warming, which is far more controversial, and something which is far less easy to know with certainty.
As for the quote:
"While chlorofluorocarbons are still blamed for ozone depletion, scientists said this study shows they don't properly account for the sun's impact."
It is also correct. But what they are saying is that the extent of ozone destruction due to CFCs wasn't correct before, since they didn't take this factor into consideration. It does not mean that CFCs don't destroy ozone. They do. And it's no theory.
Re:One more reason... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One more reason... (Score:2)
Re:One more reason... (Score:3, Interesting)
The sun/cosmic rays create ozone at contant rate X. The sun/atmospheric reactions destroy ozone at rate Y. The rates will also have a factor proportional to the amount of ozone.
If you don't understand what the above implies, read it again.
HINT: You get a steady state solution. A type of a balance where the ozone layer will tend to average o
Self sufficiency vs. resource consumption (Score:2)
Along a similar thread, aerosols and other pollutants end up reducing global warming by seeding clouds and increasing
Re:One more reason... (Score:2)
Re:One more reason... (Score:3, Interesting)
It is not a fact they are in the earth's ozone layer in an amount that has anything to do with the possible variation in the ozone layer. It's entirely possible that's due to varying sun activity or some other process we don't know about.
And I don't know about volcanos putting CO2 into the atmosphere. I do know that volcanos put amazing amount of HCl into the air, but normally hav
Re:The Sun will affect the Earth's climate. (Score:3, Informative)
Measurements done at "official" thermometers done at rural locations actually show very little (if any) increase in local temperatures in the last 100 years.
typical kneejerk reaction (Score:2)
or likes things you don't
This article focuses on solar flares and CFCs, neither of which have anything to do with engine exhaut.
Re:typical kneejerk reaction (Score:2)
Let me try: you only hate white supremacists because you're jealous of their racial pride.
Sound stupid? That's how you sound.
SUVs are wrong in every way. They're dangerous, overpriced, they reduce the air-quality in our neighbourhoods, and they waste oil (a limited resource, which could last a lot longer if people starting conserving it). Fortunately, wasting money and driving a dangerous vehicle
Re:editors please (Score:2)
Re:Nitrogen? (Score:2)