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

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.

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.

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…