Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Mysteries of ozone depletion continue 25 years after the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole
http://www.physorg.com ^ | August 30, 2011 | Provided by American Chemical Society

Posted on 08/30/2011 6:46:17 AM PDT by Red Badger

Even after many decades of studying ozone and its loss from our atmosphere miles above the Earth, plenty of mysteries and surprises remain, including an unexpected loss of ozone over the Arctic this past winter, an authority on the topic said here today. She also discussed chemistry and climate change, including some proposed ideas to "geoengineer" the Earth's climate to slow down or reverse global warming. The talk happened at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), being held this week.

In a Kavli Foundation Innovations in Chemistry Lecture, Susan Solomon, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado, Boulder, said that the combined efforts of scientists, the public, industry and policy makers to stop ozone depletion is one of science's greatest success stories, but unanswered questions remain. And ozone is still disappearing.

"We're no longer producing the primary chemicals — chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — that caused the problem, but CFCs have very long lifetimes in our atmosphere, and so we'll have ozone depletion for several more decades," said Solomon. "There are still some remarkable mysteries regarding exactly how these chlorine compounds behave in Antarctica — and it's amazing that we still have much to learn, even after studying ozone for so long."

The ozone layer is crucial to life on Earth, forming a protective shield high in the atmosphere that blocks potentially harmful ultraviolet rays in sunlight. Scientists have known since 1930 that ozone forms and decomposes through chemical processes. The first hints that human activity threatened the ozone layer emerged in the 1970s, and included one warning from Paul Crutzen, Ph.D., that agricultural fertilizers might reduce ozone levels. Another hint was from F. Sherwood Rowland, Ph.D., and Mario Molina, Ph.D., who described how CFCs in aerosol spray cans and other products could destroy the ozone layer. The three shared a 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for that research. In 1985, British scientists discovered a "hole," a completely unexpected area of intense ozone depletion over Antarctica. Solomon's 1986 expedition to Antarctica provided some of the clinching evidence that underpinned a global ban on CFCs and certain other ozone-depleting gases.

Evidence suggests that the ozone depletion has stopped getting worse. "Ozone can be thought of as a patient in remission, but it's too early to declare recovery," said Solomon. And surprises, such as last winter's loss of 40% of the ozone over the Arctic still occur due to the extremely long lifetimes of ozone-destroying substances released years ago before the ban.

Solomon also took listeners on a tour of gases and aerosols that affect climate change and described how these substances can contribute to global warming.

"On the thousand-year timescale, carbon dioxide is by far the most important greenhouse gas produced by humans, but there are some other interesting — though much less abundant — gases such as perfluorinated compounds that also last thousands of years and similarly affect our climate for millennia," said Solomon.

Increases in atmospheric "greenhouse gases" such as carbon dioxide trap heat in the atmosphere, causing the Earth's temperature to creep upward. Global warming is causing ocean levels to rise and could lead some regions to become dry "dust bowls."

Dealing with global warming has prompted a lot of interesting research on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, how to adapt to a changing climate and on the possibility of 'geoengineering' to cool the climate.

"Recent studies on 'geoengineering' the Earth's climate involve stratospheric particles of different sorts," she said. "Most of these schemes involve sulfate particles, but other types have been proposed."

The talk took place on Monday, August 29, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., Mountain time in the Wells Fargo Theater at the Colorado Convention Center.

Sponsored by The Kavli Foundation, a philanthropic organization that supports basic scientific research, the lectures are designed to address the urgent need for vigorous, "outside the box" thinking by scientists as they tackle the world's mounting challenges, including climate change, emerging diseases, and water and energy shortages.

"We are dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of humanity, promoting public understanding of scientific research, and supporting scientists and their work," said Kavli Foundation President Robert W. Conn in a statement. "The Kavli Foundation Innovations in Chemistry Lecture program at the ACS national meetings fits perfectly with our commitment to support groundbreaking discovery and promote public understanding."

The Kavli lectures debuted at the Anaheim meeting in March during this International Year of Chemistry and will continue through 2013. They will address the urgent need for vigorous, new, "outside-the-box"- thinking, as scientists tackle many of the world's mounting challenges like climate change, emerging diseases, and water and energy shortages. The Kavli Foundation, an internationally recognized philanthropic organization known for its support of basic scientific innovation, agreed to sponsor the lectures in conjunction with ACS in 2010.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: agw; ozone; sourcetitlenoturl
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-42 next last
The AGW of the 1980's...........They banned CFCs but the hole is still there...........trillions of dollars wasted for no apparent reason other than some idiots believed in it..............
1 posted on 08/30/2011 6:46:21 AM PDT by Red Badger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Those folks need to do a bit more reading out of the lab. NASA proved conclusively that the ozone hole is coupled to sunspot activity.


2 posted on 08/30/2011 6:49:24 AM PDT by GingisK
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GingisK

Heresy!
Blasphemy!
To the stake with you!......................


3 posted on 08/30/2011 6:50:54 AM PDT by Red Badger ("Treason doth never prosper.... What's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Karry Mullis, the biochemist who invented DNA replication has some interesting things to say about man’s effect on ozone. It’s a total crock.


4 posted on 08/30/2011 6:51:46 AM PDT by Track9 (Make War!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

But just think of all the stimulus that your tax donations performed. All of those scientists that got grants fed their families, invested in the stock market, went on vacations, bought new electric cars, donated to the DNC, called that lawyer at 1-800-MESOTHELOMIA and got compensated for their exposure to asbestos in their labs, etc..... You were their lifeline.


5 posted on 08/30/2011 6:54:39 AM PDT by crusty old prospector
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GingisK

Silly boy! There’s no money in Sunspots.


6 posted on 08/30/2011 6:55:53 AM PDT by 1raider1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

::They banned CFCs but the hole is still there ::

It’s always been there, it is a dynamic of the atmosphere and the temperature. “Climate Scientists” have never proven the existence of an intact ozone layer (’cuz they can’t).


7 posted on 08/30/2011 6:56:56 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (Islam is a violent and tyrannical political ideology and has nothing to do with "religion".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger
So when can I have my R-12 back? F’in communists.....
8 posted on 08/30/2011 6:57:04 AM PDT by rightwingextremist1776
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger
No kidding, it is a travesty. I asked a anti-CFC crusdaer once what the mechanism was that caused the CFC’s to travel from North America to the South Pole. No answer. The link between CFC’s and the ozone hole is tenuous at best.
9 posted on 08/30/2011 6:57:11 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

AGW is not far behind. AGW scam will be 25 years old in 2013!


10 posted on 08/30/2011 7:01:57 AM PDT by MNDude (so that's what they meant by Carter's second term)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cletus.D.Yokel

I liken it to Spanish explorers discovering the Grand Canyon, essentially a big hole in the ground, then claiming that unless we damn the Colorado River the whole world will become a vast wasteland because of erosion......................


11 posted on 08/30/2011 7:02:37 AM PDT by Red Badger ("Treason doth never prosper.... What's the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

my theory is that the ozone hole is actually like a chimney, opening up to allow toxins??? to be released from the atmosphere, and closing up when the air is correct...


12 posted on 08/30/2011 7:04:52 AM PDT by joe fonebone (Project Gunwalker, this will make watergate look like the warm up band......)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

“and it’s amazing that we still have much to learn, even after studying ozone for so long” this is just code for “after ALL of these years and after all of this MONEY we are still clueless”!


13 posted on 08/30/2011 7:05:32 AM PDT by US Navy Vet (Go Packers! Go Rockies! Go Boston Bruins! See, I'm "Diverse"!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mad_as_he$$

Really climate science should be renamed to climate politics b/c thats what it really amts to. Consider most weather forecasts are barely ahead of whats actually happening. If forecasting weather is so difficult then climate predictions are still well out of our reach. Sadly, this ‘science’ is happy to settle on what little they know now and call it good. Climatology seems the place flat world types have found a refuge.


14 posted on 08/30/2011 7:06:04 AM PDT by 556x45
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: mad_as_he$$
The fact that the South pole is a magnetic pole has nothing to do with charged particles, right?

Must be the wind patterns high in the atmosphere that only drive the cfc's to bunch up over antarctica.

15 posted on 08/30/2011 7:06:08 AM PDT by going hot (Happiness is a momma deuce)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger
proposed ideas to "geoengineer" the Earth's climate


That prospect is more frightening than natural global climate changes.

"It looked good on paper, but ... "

Libs and Leftist come up with ideas, but they never look far enough in the future so foresee the unintended consequences.
16 posted on 08/30/2011 7:07:09 AM PDT by TomGuy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Imagine if the first scientists who encountered the Grand Canyon declared that the erosion was being caused by changing weather patterns created by irresponsible farming practices in the Midwest.


17 posted on 08/30/2011 7:11:59 AM PDT by ElkGroveDan (My tagline is in the shop.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TomGuy
Windmills looked good on paper. One of their unintended side effects is they unintentionally geoengineer local climate change. Extracting large amounts of energy from the very thin band of atmosphere where all evaporation takes place changes the climate.
18 posted on 08/30/2011 7:21:47 AM PDT by Reeses (It's a safety net, not a hammock!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: going hot
Prove CFC’s are charged particles. How do they get past all of the West/East wind patterns in the Northern Hemisphere?
19 posted on 08/30/2011 7:24:01 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Bunch of Idiots,we had to change to a more expensive but less efficient gas,because of some slobbering enviro Pinheads who got it wrong,Plus a worthless Government that is filled with the same.


20 posted on 08/30/2011 7:24:52 AM PDT by Cheetahcat (Carnival commie side show, started November 4 2008 ,A date that will live in Infamy.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-42 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson