Say Anything Blog

The story of ozone:

Looks to me like the Montreal Protocol is working.

Unlike global warming, the theory relating CFC release and stratospheric ozone depletion is very well understood and has been experimentally verified.

And the ozone hole?  The smallest it’s been in about 10 years (note the Montreal Protocol didn’t fully kick in until 1995).

These environmental people are starting to get smarter.  Now everything and anything that happens with the climate fits their models.  Hopefully the American people will see this for what is really is.

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

It would be interesting to compare your graph with an estimate of the amount of freon that escaped into the atmosphere.  The reason is during the short term of your graph it appears that the Ozone levels were fairly flat through about 1986 and really started dropping. 

Freon was invented in the early 20th century and was really popular in the 60’s and 70’s. 

You show a large drop attributed to Mt Pinatubo.  That’s one, albeit large, volcano.  Aren’t there other volcanoes in the world?

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Whistler, to see much of an effect you have to pass over the threshold where you are destroying it faster than its being created, otherwise (given that there are natural sinks for O3) you end up with a more-or-less fixed level in the atmosphere.  That’s called “resiliency” of course.

I would presume that’s what was happening before the mid 80s.

In regards to when it was invented, that hardly matters.  What matters is when it started getting released in significant quantities, which was in the 1970s.

Finally, yes there are other volcanos, but Pinatubo was a very large eruption, and the chemistry of the released gases is different between different volcanos.

Regardless, the data clearly don’t sync up with Jerry’s claim:

They did something similar with the ozone hole, which continues to maintain its size despite a constant decrease in the manmade catalysts in the atmosphere.

What he said is clearly wrong, whatever the explanation you want to give for why ozone is increasing in level over time.

Isn’t ozone (O3) basically unstable?  If so, what determines its decay or absorbtion rate?  What actions besides lightning creates ozone?

The Supreme Court is a bunch of black robed tyrants

Ozone will react with itself at high enough concentration levels.

Basically, it’s 2 O3 -> 3 O2

It is this reaction that limits how much ozone you have in the atmosphere.

If you add Cl to the mix, it turns out that Cl acts as a catalyst for this reaction, allowing the reaction to occur at lower concentrations.

Besides that, it is destroyed by absorption of ultraviolet energy:

O3 + hv -> O + O2
O3 + O -> 2O2

Additionally there is the opposite reaction, the primary source for ozone:

O2 + hv -> O + O
O2 + O -> O3

These reactions produce an equilibrium concentration level of ozone.  Add the Cl (coming via the decomposition of freon molecules for example), and you create a lower “set point” for equilibrium balance between the creation and destruction of O3.

Lightning is an important source of ozone in the troposphere; as I understand it, solar activity is the prominent driver of O3 in the lower stratosphere.

Here is one article. I will dig up another that made the assertion that the shrinking of the “ozone hole” is in fact increasing ice loss in Antarctica.

Long story short? These idiots don’t know what the hell they are talking about. They are using the tried and true socialist rule, tell a lie long enough and loud enough and people begin to believe it.

Una Salus Victus Nullam Sperare Salutem

2hotel9:  Good post.  Few Americans realize that the whole ‘global warming’ scam is based on “computer-models” created by lab scientists who design a program, imput the data they choose, and then get hysterical at what their own methodology tells them.

A classic THE SKY IS FALLING mentality.

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The stakes are high. Whether the issue is the economy, or energy, or the federal courts or national security, the right answers are coming not from the Democrats, but from the Republicans. The surge of operations that began a year ago is succeeding. The only way to lose this fight is to quit. Richard M. Cheney, Vice President, 30 May, 2008

Well, ozone acts as a greenhouse gas, so you would get a warming effect if you were to reduce the hole in the ozone.  Sounds right. 

The temperature in the stratosphere is actually higher than that of the upper troposphere, which is due to the absorption of heat by the ozone layer.  Some ozone from the stratosphere makes it into the troposphere, and further heats that, which is what is responsible in turn for greater surface heating…

2Hotel9, I believe that’s the study that Pournelle is dissing.  At least they are finally admitting after 10 years of cooling that natural effects can still swamp the warming signal from human generated CO2.  This is a discussion form the global warmingest perspective.  They need the crisis to be immediate:  Hence the lies about hurricane activity increasing when in fact it has not, the claims of the uniqueness of the melting of the NW passageway (it’s happened at least three other times in the last 150 years), the claims that the ice caps will melt and the ocean level will rise catastrophically by e.g. 2050, and so forth.

The cooling of the Earth over the last 10 years, and the increased appreciation for the driving force of the ocean currents certainly helps in that regards.

Note however, that this decrease in temperature they are talking about is only Europe and North America, not worldwide temperatures.  I’m not sure their models are capable of explaining this global temperature downturn, or at least I’ve not seen anybody discuss it.  (Yes I know, it is almost certainly solar forcing related, the problem is that the solar forcing on climate is very complex and poorly treated in the models.)

Models?  Does anyone remember the “hockey stick” ?  Scientists?  I don’t think so.  True Scientists hold their theories up to examination and replication.  I learned that in the 5th grade (before socialism in the public schools).  It is called the scientific method.

Communism is evil

Technically, the “hockey stick” isn’t a model, but rather a statistical interpretation of certain data sets, which tries to calibrate various proxies—most notably tree ring growth—with temperature.

Amazingly there are still hangeroners who are still defending it.

Carrick.  Yes, thanks to bloggers who put in unrelated data and got the same statistical interpretation.  Point being that the “scientists” attempted to fool people with that statistical interpretation.  Then didn’t Al Gore allude to the geometric rise in temperatures as the earth is flooded? /sarc

Communism is evil

Actually Steve McIntyre is a real scientist, an economist and statistician, not just a blogger.  He has a strong statistical background, unlike Michael Mann (main author of the hockey stick) who is not. 

Many scientists accept that Mann’s work is flawed, although he still has plenty of supporters in the climatology community.

For the record Jerry Pournelle quoted someone who said that about the bOzone hole.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Teach me not to follow the link.

Last September I covered a study that said CFC’s weren’t nearly as bad for the Ozone layer as they said. 

This must have far-reaching consequences,” Rex says. “If the measurements are correct we can basically no longer say we understand how ozone holes come into being.” What effect the results have on projections of the speed or extent of ozone depletion remains unclear.

The rapid photolysis of Cl2O2 is a key reaction in the chemical model of ozone destruction developed 20 years ago2 (see graphic). If the rate is substantially lower than previously thought, then it would not be possible to create enough aggressive chlorine radicals to explain the observed ozone losses at high latitudes, says Rex. The extent of the discrepancy became apparent only when he incorporated the new photolysis rate into a chemical model of ozone depletion. The result was a shock: at least 60% of ozone destruction at the poles seems to be due to an unknown mechanism, Rex told a meeting of stratosphere researchers in Bremen, Germany, last week.

Other groups have yet to confirm the new photolysis rate, but the conundrum
is already causing much debate and uncertainty in the ozone research community. “Our understanding of chloride chemistry has really been blown apart,” says John Crowley, an ozone researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz, Germany.

“Until recently everything looked like it fitted nicely,” agrees Neil Harris, an atmosphere scientist who heads the European Ozone Research Coordinating Unit at the University of Cambridge, UK. “Now suddenly it’s like a plank has been pulled out of a bridge.” ...

Now this theory seemed to be in the early stages but it does cast doubt on the whole issue as well.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

I got your global warming right here...pull my finger.

Whistler that is interesting, but the fact that there is a healthy debate in the atmospheric chemistry is just an illustration that this field has not suffered the consensus forming problems that the global warming community has.

Nonetheless, doubt or not, the correlation between atmospheric chlorine concentration and O3 level is pretty striking, to me at least.  So I’d say Rex has a bit of ‘xplaining to do here:

The problem for him isn’t that there is an “unknown mechanism” for destruction of O3, that is plain from the data to be related to the additional stratospheric CL2, regardless of its origins.  The problem for him is that he has to explain where this unknown CL2 is coming from.  Matter from nowhere is always a more difficult problem to address than just an incomplete model.

Carrick, I’ve always had problems with the idea that CFC’s cause the ozone depletion.  Obviously, I’ll bow to the data but it seems odd that the CFC molecule with roughly the mass of a baseball (give or take) travels to the upper atmosphere at a significantly faster rate than ocean sourced chlorine.  (Much less CFC than ocean chlorine available therefore it moves faster or something.)

I guess it’s possible the system is just that close to unstable but ...  just not my world view.

Fly, I had the opportunity to study this process in a chemistry course in college.  It seems to be rather bullet proof.

First, CFCs, while heavier than air, are transported into the upper troposphere as aerosol particles via atmospheric turbulence.  This is confirmed by experimental measurements observing the presence of CFCs at heights of 10-20 km.

Secondly, once there, UV radiation knocks a Cl off the CFC via the reaction

CFCl3 + hν → CFCl2 + Cl

The Cl radical then catalyzes the 2O3→ 3O2 reaction as I described above.  And because it has roughly a 2-year half-life at those elevations, once you’ve stopped producing it, it takes a while for it to dissipate.

Cl from the surface doesn’t make it to the stratosphere because typically it is so reactive, and e.g. gets attached to aerosol particles in the atmospheric boundary layer.

Once in a while us scientists get it right.  Usually more often when politicians don’t get in the mix, and some of us end up preening for his attention.  Just saying…

By the way Whistler, not to beat a dead wookie or anything, but the idea that once you’ve dropped below a certain level of atmospheric Cl, it quits having an effect, is analogous to a similar biological effect (there’s a name for this that escapes me).

Arsenic isn’t carcinogenic in drinking water for example, except at levels above 150 parts per billion.  The explanation for this is that at lower levels, the human body can heal the damage faster than it is getting done.  And in the case of arsenic, it’s a needed micro-nutrient.

If you smoked one cigarette (or cigar) a week, you would likely suffer no ill effects (other than stained teeth and bad breath that is). 

Similarly, once Cl drops below its 1980 concentration, we are in the “no effect, planet can heal itself” range again.  I figure the same thing applies for CO2 production:  If we simply either stabilized or even just reduced the rate of growth of CO2 emissions, we’d go a long way to solving any potential problems with human caused global warming. 

That is either good news or bad news, depending on whether we think it’s a good idea to be able to manipulate planetary climate.  Having a thermostat that we can turn up to avert an ice age would be a Good Thing.™

Final word is the reason the CFCs make it so high up is because they are chemically inert. It takes UV exposure to produce an environmental hazard.  The actual chemical process responsible for the catalyzation of O3 is dirt simple, as far as I can see, the only thing that anybody has called in question is how efficiently the CFC drops its “bad-boy” Cl radical when exposed to UV radiation.

What we’re missing here Carrick is the buildup in CFC’s from say 1960 to now. 

Freon was banned as a aerosol propellent in 1978, did we not get a benefit from that?

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Whistler, it’s back to the issue that you have to raise the atmospheric chlorine level above some “base level” before you see any effect from the added Cl, because as I mentioned before there are other sources and sinks contributing to the system.  The 1980 level appears to represent that breakpoint.  Likely there was a tiny effect before 1980, but it was buried in the noise floor.

Whistler:

Freon was banned as a aerosol propellent in 1978, did we not get a benefit from that?

Just look at freon emissions as a function of time.  They continued to grow until 1998, because aerosol propellent was just one of many sources for human CFC emissions.

Not very mysteriously, the peak in the size of the ozone hole occurred about that time too.

Final word is the reason the CFCs make it so high up is because they are chemically inert.

(Bowing) Good enough.  First time it’s been explained to me in a rational way.

Thanks for the info Carrick.  I hadn’t thought the growth curve was quite as steep as that.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Fly:  That’s how my chemistry professor put it, and that explanation stuck with me. 

It’s one of those paradoxes:  Take one of the most inert materials you can image, inject it into a complex system like the Earth, and get a large measurable effect from it. 

Due to processes that I don’t fully understand, most of the Cl gets transported to the the polar regions; so there is almost no ozone depletion in tropical regions.  Thus the ozone depletion at the poles is a pretty good measure of its effect.

This is one of those cases where there is a clear cost-benefit analysis too by the way.  Damage to humans, livestock and crops far exceed the cost of going away from CFCs.  And there really were companies trying to block the switch, like Dupont who had invested heavily into CFCs and were running an active program of disinformation.

The trouble is that the global warminists try to shoe-horn the success of the CFC effort into the global warming, and it is by no means a good fit.

The science is very complex, many of the mechanisms are either unknown aor at best poorly understood, the costs are likely prohibitive, where there are any net benefits is unclear, fossil fuel companies are by no means threatened by CO2 emission legislation (car companies, maybe), in fact Exxon-Mobile funds global warming advocates about 10 to 1 over denialists, and oo forth.

And in the case of the CFCS it was the scientists themselves who lead the charge.  With global warming, it appears to be mostly socialists and environmentalists who are pushing this thing so hard, and for obvious ulterior motives.  My opinion there.

Wouldn’t the thousand or so atmospheric nuclear weapon detonations in the fifties and sixties, have caused an ozone depleation simular to Pinatubo?

well the energy released by a nuke very well could create more bOzone.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.

Maybe I’ve been misinformed, or misunderstood what I was told years ago, but I was under the impression that plenty of ozone is generated here at ground level from various sources, ranging from faulty electrical connections, d.c. motors with faulty brushes, welders, etc, anything that generates an electrical spark, however, if the molecule does not decay in the mean time, it would take, due to it’s buoyancy, approximately 50 years to rise to the upper levels of the atmosphere. Carric?

"we should select our leaders on principle first, electability second.”

A young man whose wisdom far exceeds his years

Spartacus, most ground-level ozone reacts before it reaches the upper troposphere:

Near the ground, you start with a relatively small concentration level, which diminishes as you go upwards away from the ground.  The large blip at mid altitudes is due to the production of ozone due to the interaction of ultraviolet light with O2 molecules…

Thanks Carrick, I’m smarter now than I was a few minutes ago...see this time I even spelled your handle correctly ~

"we should select our leaders on principle first, electability second.”

A young man whose wisdom far exceeds his years

All of the planets have ozone holes, or more specificly permanent low pressure zones, over their polar regions. Even the Sun has this feature.
Why is it that only on Earth this is considered unnatural?
Show me a picture of the pole without an ozone hole.
Show me a planet without an ozone hole.

So high altitude ozone is our uv shield.  That’s pretty remarkable for a molecule that is only 3 parts in 10 million.  I guess the other 9,999,997 molecules don’t count.

The Supreme Court is a bunch of black robed tyrants

Show me a planet without an ozone hole.

I’d suggest looking at the moon, but that’s not a planet. Perhaps any of the other 8 planets (7 since pluto is now classified as a dwarf planet), each is pretty much lacking ozone as a whole, except maybe Jupiter, it’s gaseous and you don’t know what it’s full of, like me after a Mexican dinner. Sorry, TMI

"we should select our leaders on principle first, electability second.”

A young man whose wisdom far exceeds his years

lol

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

Not because it isn’t a planet, the moon won’t work because it doesn’t have an atmosphere. If it had an atmosphere it would have an “ozone” hole over it’s pole.
How do I know? Because the next planet over, Venus, has one. And Mars too
(NH of Mars showing circumpolar sandstorms with hole in middle directly over the ice cap).
True they vary in chemical content in response to the constituent gases, but every freaking planet we look at has their own version of an “ozone” hole.
And yes, Sparticus, that includes
Uranus.

papertiger, we have data that predates the ozone hole, which was first observed experimentally in 1977.

The general phenomenon you are talking about, the polar vortex, is related to global atmospheric hydrodynamics.  That is what is responsible for the concentration of Cl at the poles, with little effect being observed at the equator.

Generally I think Spartucus is right though, strictly speaking the Earth is unique in having an ozone hole, and its recent appearance, and rapid deepening, post-dates the use of CFCs

Yes I agree Carrick, low pressure over poles is a general feature of planets. For instance the south pole station has a barometric pressure at 695 mb (20.5") on an average day. This in comparison with the average 1020 mb (30.0") for the rest of the world.
That’s minus 33% for every sort of air, versus the minus 2% of ozone at the height of the “ozone depletion” scare.
So why don’t we raise a fuss and bother about the O2 “hole” or the N2 “hole” over Antarctica?

Papertiger, I’m sure a fuse will be raised once the global warming alarmists find a way to work it into their model of CO2.  They’ve already claimed that the earth getting colder is a part of global warming/climate change/whatever they are calling it today.

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

I think the way to handle the move from global warming to climate change is to laugh at them as much as possible.

What’s going to happen to US industry when the global warming extremists like John McCain double the price of electricity?  I would think all these factories will close and set up in countries where they aren’t scared of technology.