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The new Arctic ozone hole

An interesting and very informative paper was published by the American Geophysical Union this past Saturday, entitled “Arctic winter 2010/2011 at the brink of an ozone hole.” The first paragraph of the introduction essentially summed up the paper’s key points:

Large losses of Arctic stratospheric ozone have been observed during winter 2010/2011, exceeding observed losses during cold winters over the past decades, characterized as the first Arctic Ozone Hole. Although in general Arctic ozone is expected to recover because of the reductions in ozone depleting substances as a result of the Montreal Protocol and its amendments, the observation that apparently the cold Arctic winters in the stratosphere have been getting colder over the past decades raises some concern that Arctic ozone depletion may worsen over the next decades if the cooling trend continues while concentrations of ozone depleting substances remain sufficiently high. [emphasis mine]

Two important take-aways:

  • CFCs from aerosol sprays were thought to be the cause of the winter ozone hole over the south pole, which is why the Montreal Protocol banned them. Yet, despite the fact that almost all the CFCs released over the past half century were released in the northern hemisphere, and that the atmospheric components of the two hemispheres remain largely isolated from each other, last winter was the first time an ozone hole had been detected above the north pole. Moreover, this new ozone hole occurred more than twenty-three years after the Montreal Protocols were signed, time enough for the ban to have caused significant declines in atmospheric CFCs. Why then has an ozone hole appeared now above the north pole? Doesn’t this raise some interesting questions about the CFC theory itself, suggesting strongly that there are enormous unknowns that scientists did not understand in 1987 when the protocols were signed and still do not understand today?
  • Temperatures in the Arctic stratosphere have been cold, and getting colder. Why? Is it simply the normal random fluctuations of the climate, or are other factors causing the temperatures to go down?

In their concluding paragraph the authors state that

There is considerable uncertainty if and to what extent past cold Arctic winters have cooled and there is even more uncertainty as to how this will evolve in the future. In general one expects a further stratospheric cooling as a result of increased levels of greenhouse gases. However, most chemistry-climate models predict a simultaneous increase in wave activity that will lead to higher Arctic temperatures in the future.

In the first sentence they admit that they really don’t understand why the temperatures have cooled recently in the Arctic stratosphere. In the second sentence they blandly state — without explanation — that greenhouse gases should cause stratospheric cooling. In the third sentence, they contradict the second sentence by noting the models call for exactly the opposite, a warming due to an increase in greenhouse gases.

Here we see the consequences of politics in science. They feel obliged to pander to the global warming crowd. The cooling must be explained by greenhouse gases, even if that makes no sense. According to every explanation of the greenhouse gas theory I have ever read, more greenhouse gases should allow the atmosphere to hold more heat. Thus, the stratosphere should show an increase in temperature, not a decrease.

Though these two points illustrate nicely the uncertainty of climate science, the paper’s overall results are what I find most interesting: the cold Arctic weather in recent years has produced an ozone hole over the north pole. This result suggests strongly that global warming might actually be beneficial to human civilization, not harmful as routinely claimed by global warming activists. If a colder climate destroys the ozone layer, which protects us from the harmful radiation from the sun, shouldn’t we want to keep the climate warmer?

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

3 comments

  • jwing

    Scientism….the new age secular faith. As long as one refutes traditional western ideals and morals, a new age scientist can believe what he wants regardless of the empirical evidence. It doesn’t have to be logical; one just has to “imagine” it and it can be true. Scary!
    Einstein, Newton, Faraday, et al would be sickened by the lack of clarity and common sense exhibited by the average modern, college-educated citizen of the 21st century. Sad…so sad. Global warming, government experts, blah, blah, blah………..
    How truely pathetic there is no outrage at the obvious sham being perputrated by a complicit media, academia, NGO’s and government.
    Pray for this Repulic.

  • My understanding is that heat would be trapped in the troposphere by the well-understood mechanism of trace gas (CO2, methane) entrapment, thus preventing thermal transfer to the stratosphere, resulting in cooling. That’s their theory, and they’re sticking to it. No less an authority than Vladimir Putin has remarked on the beneficial effects of a warmer Earth, and he’s at least as qualified to speak on that as Al Gore.

  • Our understanding of how certain chemicals, most notably CFCs, effect our atmosphere began during the fifties, with measurements of atmospheric ozone. The ozone was stable until about 1970, when there was a noticeable downturn in global ozone levels. This was about 40 years after CFCs first began to see industrial use, and right about when you would expect to see such depletion due to CFCs breaking down into chlorine in our upper atmosphere. In 1974 Mario Molina put forward his ozone depletion hypothesis. This lead to several studies being conducted across the globe, most notably the launch of the TOMS and SAGE-1 satellites in the late 1970’s, with a suite of studies coming in the mid 1980’s. The data was clear by the time of the Montreal Protocol, and has become increasingly clear ever since. CFCs destroy our ozone.
    http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/cfcs_checklist
    http://www.theozonehole.com/montreal.htm

    The Antarctic is significantly colder than the arctic, and this has a big role to play in ozone depletion rates via CFC contamination. During the polar summer CFC is broken down by UV light into chlorine monoxide radicals (ClO). NOx (term for both NO2 and NO) can react with ClO to form either chlorine nitrate or hydrochloric acid (HCL) and nitric acid. During the winter months the nitric acid can freeze, providing a surface for chlorine nitrate and HCL to react to form molecular chlorine and nitric acid (latter of which freezes to create more surfaces for this reaction to take place on). Molecular chlorine (CL2) does not react with ozone, but it is easily broken down by UV light. Come spring the sun turns CL2 into two CL molecules, which are what react with ozone to create CLO and O2. The CLO combines with another CLO, (unless otherwise combined with NOx) and is then broken down again by UV to form two CL molecules and an O2 molecule. The CL is then free to repeat the process. The antarctic, being significantly colder, forms much more nitric acid ice and that ice hangs around a lot longer. So the amount of CFCs generated in the north has not previously been enough to cause an ozone hole (though there is noticeable depletion of the ozone in the arctic, as compared to pre-1970 levels), while the colder temperatures in the antarctic facilitate the breakdown of CFC into CL, which in turn breaks down O3 (Ozone) into O2.
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/2006/chapters/Q10.pdf
    http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/06/03/2588286.htm
    http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/1z2.html

    The Montreal protocol had specific phase out dates. By 1992 the participating nations agreed to keep their CFC production under 150% of 1986 levels. It isn’t until 1996 that all CFC production was halted, and it won’t be until 2015 that HCFC production will be halted. CFC can hang out in the atmosphere for up to 150 years, and the resultant chlorine can hang around equally long. There seems to be some confusion between the signing of an agreement and the implementation of the things agreed to. The Protocol was enforced on January 1, 1989, 23 years ago. But the first phase began in 1991 and the last phase ended in 1996. (Neglecting HCFCs, which have yet to be phased out) There have been significant declines in CFCs in the atmosphere, measured both directly and by rising ozone levels. However, not all CFCs are out of the atmosphere, and dangerous levels are expected to persist until about 2050.

    As Blair pointed out, the greenhouse gases in our troposphere trap heat, preventing it from warming up the stratosphere. The warming of the troposphere is generating a net loss of heat in the stratosphere. As CFC levels drop (as was achieved by the Montreal Protocol) and ozone levels rise, the stratosphere will warm due to the interaction between ozone and UV light. But this will only mitigate part of the cooling due to tropospheric heat trapping. This stratospheric cooling means that more nitric acid ice can form above the arctic, resulting in the new arctic ozone hole. The role of CFCs in our atmosphere is well understood.

    “In the first sentence they admit that they really don’t understand why the temperatures have cooled recently in the Arctic stratosphere.”
    “There is considerable uncertainty if and to what extent past cold Arctic winters have cooled and there is even more uncertainty as to how this will evolve in the future.”
    Your statement is similar to what you were referring to, but it was not equivalent to it. The sentence referred to makes two statements. The first is that they are uncertain if and how much past arctic winters have cooled. The second statement is in regards to the uncertainty in how this new development will shape the future of arctic temperatures. Neither statement is about understanding why these temperatures have fallen in the past decade. They did not admit that they really don’t understand why the temperatures have cooled recently.

    There are two things happening to cool the stratosphere. As ozone gets depleted it lets through more UV light. But it’s ozone’s absorption of UV light that warms the stratosphere in the first place. Thus, less ozone means lower temperatures. Furthermore, greenhouse gases trap heat in the lower atmosphere, exasperating the cooling from ozone depletion. This happens because in an essentially non-radiating body like the Earth (We do generate some heat from internal processes, but these are negligible in comparison to the energy received from the Sun. Old Faithful heats the world up a lot less than the Sun does) the total energy level of that planet is derived from external bodies, like a nearby star. We get only so much energy from the Sun, and so if some of that energy is being trapped as heat in one part of the atmosphere, there must be a corresponding drop in temperature in another part of the atmosphere. Conservation of energy. The ozone layer is recovering, but it is not fully healed. But even if it were at the stable levels measured before 1970, that warming would not be enough to counteract the stratospheric cooling caused by the tropospheric warming that is due to man made greenhouse gases.
    http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/strato_cooling.asp

    Their third sentence is I believe in relation to atmospheric waves, especially the mostly biennial sudden stratospheric warmings. It seems that they are saying that as the climate changes we will see increased atmospheric wave activity. This will intensify current wave activity, such as the sudden stratospheric warmings, resulting in higher temperatures during these events, a more chaotic schedule for the events, and potentially a greater frequency of these events. But these events generally last only a few days, and so would not lead to higher overall arctic temperatures. Unfortunately I cannot be sure that this is what they are referring to as your reference paper is behind a paywall, but that seems the most likely assumption from what I was able to research. I would like to point out that global warming is a somewhat misleading term for a complex event. While yes, the general trend will be towards higher temperatures on the ground, the term global warming neglects certain factors like stratospheric cooling or the chaotic change from one climate to another. Which is why the term climate change has been growing in popularity. Yes, the planet will get warmer. But not all at once and everywhere at the same time. The climate is changing.

    I should like to note that the Montreal Protocol has successfully reduced atmospheric concentrations of CFCs, with a corresponding rise in ozone levels. The Montreal Protocol is working, which is why it has been hailed as one of the most successful international agreements in history. Such a high level of international cooperation is not a thing to be scoffed at.

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