Worse, or...Better?
Posted on 09/16/2005 12:50:34 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
GENEVA (Reuters) - The hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica has grown to near record size this year, suggesting 20 years of pollution controls have so far had little effect, the United Nations said on Friday.
In a bulletin on the seasonal depletion of ozone gas, which filters harmful ultraviolet radiation that can cause skin cancer and cataracts, the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the hole would peak within a couple of weeks.
"It will probably not break any records, but it shows that ozone depletion is going on and that the so-called ozone recovery has yet to be confirmed," Geir Braathen, WMO's top ozone expert, told a news briefing.
U.S. scientists reported last month that the ozone layer has stopped shrinking but it will take decades to start recovering.
The hole above the South Pole and Antarctica, which spans about 27 million sq km, was expected to grow another million sq km in a week, bringing it close to the record years of 2000 and 2003, the WMO said.
It had passed over Ushuaia, in the Patagonia region of southern Argentina, "leading to noticeable increases in UV (ultraviolet)" radiation, according to the bulletin, issued on the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) containing chlorine and bromine, have been blamed for thinning the layer because they attack the ozone molecules, causing them to break apart.
Many CFCs, once commonly used in refrigeration, air conditioning and industrial cleaning, were banned by the Vienna Convention, signed exactly 20 years ago, and its Montreal Protocol clinched in 1987.
Most scientists say the hole spanned a record 29 million sq km (11 million sq miles) in September 2003, exposing the southern tip of South America.
"You could say that the ozone situation is stabilizing at a low level. We are approaching the maximum of ozone depletion, it is kind of leveling off, but it is still too early to say that the situation is improving," Braathen said.
In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that the 189 states to have ratified the Montreal Protocol had eliminated more than 1.5 million tonnes of annual production of chemicals that destroy the ozone layer.
But developing countries were "only at the half-way point in many of their obligations" under the pact, while in wealthy countries a number of chemicals still needed to be phased out.
"It is essential that we remain alert to this hazard to avoid an increase in skin cancers, cataracts and other health threats," Annan said.
Ouch right in my eye, dag nabbit!
As someone who grew up in the Finger Lakes region of New York, I am thankful for global warming or else I would have been forced to live atop a glacier.
Ho-hum...
Now that Winter at the South Pole is ending and the South Pole is again turning towards the Sun, sunlight will once again be able to strike the atmosphere above the South Pole and ultraviolet light will once again be absorbed by oxygen molecules in that atmosphere, thereby creating new ozone molecules, which will shrink the "Ozone Hole".
This will process will continue until March 2006, when the South Pole will turn away from the Sun. Then, with no new ultraviolet rays acting on oxygen to create ozone, the equilibrium point will change and the number of ozone molecules will diminish, creating an appearance of a growing "Ozone Hole" as Winter at the South Pole progresses.
Then, in September 2006, Winter at the South Pole will end and the South Pole will once again turn towards the Sun, sunlight will once again strike the atmosphere above the South Pole, and ultraviolet light will once again be absorbed by oxygen molecules in that atmosphere, thereby creating new ozone molecules, which will shrink the "Ozone Hole".
This process will continue until March 2007, when the South Pole will turn away from the Sun. Then, with no new ultraviolet rays acting on oxygen to create ozone, the equilibrium point will change and the number of ozone molecules will diminish, creating an appearance of a growing "Ozone Hole"...
I guess it's too much to ask that the "scientists" who do these junk "studies" first learn a little about chemical equilibrium: 3 O2 => 2 O3 => 3 O2 => 2 O3...
Or the impact of the Earth's axial tilt on our seasons...
Essentially saying what you are!If 20 years of pollution control has'nt improved anything,THEN IT'S NOT POLLUTION!Besides,this country does not produce anything anymore and our temperature has been getting steadily cooler since the 1950's.
It is frequently alleged that the "ozone hole" (actually a seasonal thinning of stratospheric ozone in the South Polar region and not a "hole" at all) was "discovered" in the 1980s, subsequent to significant use of anthropogenic chlorinated fluorocarbons in the 1960s through 1980s. This is simply not true.
Atmospheric ozone is measured in Dobson Units, named for the Oxford academic Gordon Miller Bourne Dobson (1889-1976), one of the pioneers of atmospheric ozone research and inventor of the Dobson Spectrophotometer, used to measure atmospheric ozone from the ground. During the International Geophysical Year of 1956 there was a significant increase in the number of these devices in use around the globe and the Halley Bay (Antarctica) anomaly was discovered. Yes, that's 1956, three decades prior to the allegedly alarming "discovery." There was a significantly different perspective then because interest was focussed on the November increase - now called a "recovery" - in stratospheric ozone levels over Antarctica with the collapse of the South Polar Vortex.
Doubtless we'll get more hand wringing over poor irradiated Punta Arenas but everywhere around the world between 45N and 45S, where the bulk of the planet's human population lives, receives more solar radiation on any normal day than does Punta Arenas on the most severely irradiated day or two every few years when a patch of ozone-reduced atmosphere passes between the tip of South America and the sun.
Is said "hole" of any particular significance to humans? Probably not - unless you intend sunbathing in South Polar regions in September. Even so, you would be risking (besides frostbite) sunburn but apparently not an increased melanoma risk. Why? Because melanoma and genetic damage is primarily associated with tissue-penetrating UVA (ultraviolet radiation in the 320-400 nanometer [nm] band) exposure and alleged ozone depletion is completely irrelevant to UVA levels experienced at surface - UVA is simply not blocked by atmospheric gases.
What a bunch of CRAP!!!!!!!!!!
Ozone is created when radiation enters the atmosphere and strikes water.
When the "layer" is thin, more radiation enters an creates more ozone!
It's a self healing process and about a 3 to 5 week cycle.
The rest of this hysteria is CRAP!!!
Just what I was thinking. Those bad CFC's that come from an aerosal can.
If not WHY NOT??????
i say plug it with kennedy's head!!!!!!
Cut and paste this link. It's about Mt. Erebus. A very high, very active vocano that has been erupting right under the Antarctic Ozone Hole forever. This environmental hazard has been ignored by George Bush, while he swaggers around flooded towns. It's because his wealthy racist pals make money from active volcanos. John Kerry would have stopped this eruption immediately after the election that was stolen from him by Halliburton and the Bush Family. Many scientists think that this constant eruptive process has something to do with the O-Hole over the Antarctic. Ya think?
Suggest govmint wonks measure ozone hole over Livermore Falls, Maine. Every man, woman, child, and domesticated animal in Livermore Falls is gonna die, if soon-to-be-president Hillary Clinton, and former-dishwasher-and-now-Governor Baldacci don't help us out.
O3, formed naturally from diatomic oxygen by electric discharge or exposure to ultraviolet radiation
So it's winter over the South Pole. Which means no sunlight is falling on the South Pole. Which means no ultraviolet light from sunlight to form ozone. OOOOOPS, that's too simple, must go back to the standard moonbat answer:
IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!
And an entire metastatic new bureaucracy formed to scream "The Sky Ozone is Falling!!!" would be out of work.
Tsk, tsk, tsk.
All the records in my attic are 12 inches in diameter. That's not really that big.
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