New data: the ozone hole occurs mostly because of the sunspot cycle and cosmic rays, not CFC pollution
The uncertainty of science: A science paper released yesterday suggests that the ozone hole over Antarctica that scientists have been tracking for almost a half century is caused mostly by the solar cycle and the accompanying fluctuations in cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere, not the release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that used to be used in aerosol spray cans.
The graph to the right, from figure 2 of the paper, illustrates the data. The red line is the ozone hole fluctuations predicted by the paper’s model, labeled “CRE Theory”, based on the increase of cosmic ray radiation during solar minimum. The blue, black, and green lines indicate the actual fluctuations of ozone and temperature in the lower stratosphere where the ozone layer exists. As you can see, the model and actual fluctuations match quite closely. From the paper’s abstract:
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