Welcome New Members! We want to hear from you. Register, stop lurking and start posting!

OZONE LAYER

All international weather archives can be found here.
Locked
User avatar
crikey
Supercell
Reactions:
Posts: 1314
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2011 8:02 pm
Location: tweed shire NSW and nDUNOLLY.. Nth Central district VIC
Contact:

OZONE LAYER

Post by crikey »

An article in the herald sun date Thurs april 7th 2011 page 27
Title
Alarming rise in Ozone hole
The Arctics protective ozone layer which keeps out ultraviolet radiation, the suns most damaging rays, has thinned about 40% in the northern hemisphere winter.
A record drop.
The cause is similar to ozone depletion over antartica: ozone munching compounds in air pollutants that are chemically triggered by a combination of of extreme cold and sunlight.
( copied from Herald sun)
User avatar
Petros
Supercell
Reactions:
Posts: 1999
Joined: Tue Dec 01, 2009 6:25 pm
Location: Maffra, Gippsland, Vic

Re: OZONE LAYER

Post by Petros »

I'd read that the ozone thing was another Y2K scare.... we changed our refridgeration(spelling?) gas only to find that the ozone depletion fixed itself before the changes were all implemented???? Is my recollection right???
User avatar
Tempest
Cumulonimbus
Reactions:
Posts: 148
Joined: Sat Aug 14, 2010 8:34 pm
Location: Warragul North, Vic... 140m asl

Re: OZONE LAYER

Post by Tempest »

An interesting article here from Science Daily.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 085634.htm

Seems the unusually cold winter up north has caused a chemical reaction with the pollutants that are still remaining in the stratosphere.
Ozone concentrations and total content have been continually monitored since the signing in 1987 of an international treaty, the Montreal Protocol, which regulates the production of halocarbons. These are chemical compounds that contain chlorine and bromine and cause the destruction of ozone in the stratosphere (the part of the atmosphere that extends from an altitude of around 10 to 50 km and where the concentration of ozone is at its highest). Since halocarbons remain in the atmosphere for tens of years, it will be several decades before their concentration falls back to its pre-1980 level.
User avatar
crikey
Supercell
Reactions:
Posts: 1314
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2011 8:02 pm
Location: tweed shire NSW and nDUNOLLY.. Nth Central district VIC
Contact:

Re: OZONE LAYER

Post by crikey »

Read an article today in the Australian Oct 4th 2011

An ozone hole almost one third the size of Australia opened up over the Arctic earlier this year, matching the ozone loss over Antarctica for the first time on record.
Reason given:
Formed by a deep chill over the north pole.
Some loss of ozone from human contributions of man-made chloride based compounds.
The loss of Oxone is driven by deep cold ,which causes water vapor and molecules of nitric acid to condense into clouds that convert into substances that gobble up ozone.
Ozone loss over the Antartic is traditionally much bigger than the Arctic because the temperatures in the Antarctic are much colder than the Arctic.
Loss of ozone is also seasonally dependent.
The biggest loss ( 80%)of ozone in 2010-2011 occurred between 18 and 20km.
British science journal. NATURE
The trigger was a large scale cyclone that forms every winter in the stratosphere but which last winter was born in extremely cold conditions.
---------------------
My comment:
Now keep in mind the stratosphere is above the troposphere where we live.
Now also..During this same period .
The Arctic has seen record ice losses caused by warming in the lower troposphere.
Isn't the atmosphere so amazingly complex!!
:?
User avatar
crikey
Supercell
Reactions:
Posts: 1314
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2011 8:02 pm
Location: tweed shire NSW and nDUNOLLY.. Nth Central district VIC
Contact:

Re: OZONE LAYER

Post by crikey »

Absolutely every tool available to examine the atmosphere at the poles can be found here for the Antarctic and south pole
Plenty on ozone and upper air and stratosphere.
http://www.ozonelayer.noaa.gov/data/antarctic.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Was able to examine the Antarctic atmosphere of the cold snap of dec 25th 2006 and Jan 11th 2012 and found that there was a significant cold anomaly in the stratosphere 1mb 3mb 5mb profiles etc for both events . The anomaly extending to the coldest minimums range

Amazing the effect that ozone concentrations have on the atmosphere and climate.
Hope to post a few reviews of studies done in this area.
An initial look tonight and was very intrigued.
User avatar
crikey
Supercell
Reactions:
Posts: 1314
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2011 8:02 pm
Location: tweed shire NSW and nDUNOLLY.. Nth Central district VIC
Contact:

Re: OZONE LAYER

Post by crikey »

An obituary in the AGE March 16th 2012 for a pioneer of the effects of CFC's( chlorofluorocarbons) on OZONE on the atmosphere..EXTRACTS below

SHERWOOD ROWLAND..scientist ..Born 1927 died 10/3/ 2012

shared the 1995 Nobel prize for chemistry : research suggesting that CFC's once commonly used in aerosol sprays, solvents, refrigerants and packaging materials were eating a hole in the ozone layer


ROWLAND and Mario Molina at the university of California at Irvine discovered that while CFC's are stable at low altitudes, once they reached the middle of the stratosphere, 32 to 48 km's above the earths surface the molecules would be broken down by sunlight, releasing highly reactive chlorine atoms.
The result they predicted would be a rapid chain reaction in which single chlorine atoms would combine with ozone to form chlorine Oxide and then break apart to combine with Ozone once again
each atom destroying as many as 100,000 ozone molecules. :o

Rowland was so horrified by the implications that he told his wife it looked like the end of the world
In 1974 ( nature periodical) Rowland and Molina calculated that the emissions of CFC's could result in 7 to 13 percent loss in global ozone. by the middle of the 21st century. Rowland warned of the increased risks of skin cancer and catastrophic climate change. He called for CFC's to be banned

The US banned CFC's in 1976

The 28 billion$ Aerosols industries touted his research as rubbish and interest waned
However later

In 1985 , British scientist James farmer and colleagues observed a massive springtime loss of ozone over Antarctica and the temperate zones of the northern hemisphere.
Both ozone deletions were found to be chiefly caused by industrial CFC's.
Two years later the UN Montreal protocol was signed of which CFC's are now banned worldwide
He served as president of the American association for the advancement of science and became a respected voice on the dangers of global warming and climate change
Locked