Defending the Truth

tyreay · 11-03-2006, 06:18 AM

U.S. scientists at NASA say in a press release that this year's ozone hole in the polar region of the southern hemisphere has broken records for area and depth. "From Sept. 21-30, the average area of the ozone hole was the largest ever observed, at 10.6 million square miles," said Paul Newman, atmospheric scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"We now have the largest ozone hole on record," said Craig Long of NCEP.

The researchers used NASA's Aura satellite and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's balloon-borne instruments to collect the measurements. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura satellite measures the total amount of ozone from the ground to the upper atmosphere over the entire Antarctic continent. This instrument observed a low value of 85 Dobson Units (DU) on Oct. 8, in a region over the East Antarctic ice sheet.

Scientists from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., use balloon-borne instruments to measure ozone directly over the South Pole. By Oct. 9, the total column ozone had plunged to 93 DU from approximately 300 DU in mid-July. More importantly, nearly all of the ozone in the layer between eight and 13 miles above the Earth's surface had been destroyed. In this critical layer, the instrument measured a record low of only 1.2 DU., having rapidly plunged from an average non-hole reading of 125 DU in July and August.

"These numbers mean the ozone is virtually gone in this layer of the atmosphere," said David Hofmann, director of NOAA's Global Monitoring Division.

The ozone 'layer' is actually made of ozone molecules scattered through the atmosphere on a wide range of height. This invisible shield protects the Earth from the harm of powerful ultraviolet radiation coming from the Sun. The hole is due to the depletion, caused primarily by human-produced chemicals, of the ozone layer above Antarctica. Some chemicals react with ozone and transform it into other substances, effectively eliminating it. These human-produced compounds release chlorine and bromine gases in the stratosphere.

The temperature of the Antarctic stratosphere causes the severity of the ozone hole to vary from year to year. Colder than average temperatures result in larger and deeper ozone holes, while warmer temperatures lead to smaller ones. The temperature readings from NOAA satellites and balloons during late-September 2006 showed the lower stratosphere at the rim of Antarctica was approximately nine degrees Fahrenheit colder than average, increasing the size of this year's ozone hole by 1.2 to 1.5 million square miles. This temperature variation contributed to the record reading, and in following years it is likely the hole will be a little smaller.

As a result of the Montreal Protocol and its amendments, the concentrations of ozone-depleting substances in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) peaked around 1995 and are decreasing in both the troposphere and stratosphere. It is estimated these gases reached peak levels in the Antarctica stratosphere in 2001. However, these ozone-depleting substances typically have very long lifetimes in the atmosphere (more than 40 years).

As a result of this slow decline, the ozone hole is estimated to annually very slowly decrease in area by about 0.1 to 0.2 percent for the next five to 10 years. This slow decrease is masked by large year-to-year variations caused by Antarctic stratosphere weather fluctuations.

The recently completed 2006 World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion concluded the ozone hole recovery would be masked by annual variability for the near future and the ozone hole would fully recover in approximately 2065.

Ozone (O3) is a triatomic molecule, consisting of three oxygen atoms. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic species O2. It is present in low concentrations throughout the Earth's atmosphere. It has many industrial and consumer applications as well as being used in ozone therapy.

Ozone, the first allotrope of a chemical element to be described by science, was discovered by Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1840, who named it after the Greek word for smell (ozein), from the peculiar odor in lightning storms. The odor from a lightning strike is from electrons freed during the rapid chemical changes, not the ozone itself.

The ozone layer was discovered in 1913 by the French physicists Charles Fabry and Henri Buisson. Its properties were explored in detail by the British meteorologist G. M. B. Dobson, who developed a simple spectrophotometer that could be used to measure stratospheric ozone from the ground. Between 1928 and 1958 Dobson established a worldwide network of ozone monitoring stations which continues to operate today. The "Dobson unit", a convenient measure of the total amount of ozone in a column overhead, is named in his honor.

http://www.playfuls.com/news_002597

tyreay · 11-03-2006, 06:28 AM

The increase in D.U.s is crazy! this probably means the ice at both poles are now going to melt.
I think Someone should be considering havesting fresh water glacier ice that has broken off. Leave it frozen and process it once it is brought to a water facility. I think with the shit that is going to hit the fan in the next 100 years we are going to need huge reserves of water to wash it off. All kidding aside, Fresh water, on a world wide average, is comparable, right now in value to gasoline. The need for fresh water is going to do nothing but get worse with the changing world.

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