Debunking the Myth of Man-Made Ozone Depletion
The ozone “hole” is really just a thinning. Ozone is produced by solar radiation at stratospheric elevations converting O2 to O3. Ozone is therefore not produced during the polar winters and is at its lowest level in the polar springtime. It recovers during the sunlit summers.
In 1958, Eugene Parker developed a theory showing how the Sun’s hot corona — by then known to be millions of degrees Fahrenheit — is so hot that it overcomes the Sun’s gravity and generates the solar wind, a stream of free protons and electrons (plasma) moving at speeds up to 1.8 million miles per hour.
A year later, the Soviet spacecraft Luna 1 detected solar wind particles in space, and in 1962 the observations were confirmed by NASA’s Mariner 2 spacecraft.
The solar wind is deflected by the Earth’s magnetic field but such protection does not extend over the polar regions. Ozone production varies from summer to winter but ozone is continuously ripped off.
Due to the vigorous circumpolar winds (Antarctica’s polar vortex), the atmosphere above Antarctica is largely confined. Any ozone produced in mid-latitude regions does not bleed into the stratosphere over Antarctica. Therefore, the thinning of the ozone is generally most pronounced at the South Pole.
The polar vortex of the Arctic wanders due to the different geography and topography, so mid-latitude ozone does bleed into the Arctic.
In the winter of 2019-2020 the northern polar vortex remained very stable and provided the same isolating conditions as the Antarctic. The Arctic was particularly cold, setting record low temperatures in northern Greenland.
On March 12, 2020, NASA observers were alarmed about the record loss of ozone over the Arctic.
www.nasa.gov [1]
On April 24, 2020, observers of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) confirmed that the Arctic ozone layer had rebounded and observers were equally “surprised” and relieved.
www.theweek.in[2]
In 1957, the British Antarctic Survey conducted balloon sampling of Antarctica’s atmosphere with a Dobson Spectrophotometer. These measurements gave the first clues that there was a seasonal thinning of the ozone layer.
This was the basis for Molina & Rowland’s 1974 paper about the destruction of ozone by chlorine or bromine. It was just assumed that the chlorine and bromine in the Antarctic atmosphere came from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), yet it is known that a great number of chlorine and bromine compounds are emitted from volcanoes — such as Antarctica’s Mt. Erebus
(see link). www.sciencedirect.com [3]
Routine monitoring of Antarctica’s ozone layer began in earnest in 1985 (J.C. Farman, et al) and continues today. The seasonal waxing and waning are well documented. The 1974 paper by Molina and Rowland was strictly a modeling effort, drawing on modeling by others. No observations, not even a lab hood.
The solar wind did not blow thru their model nor did they have volcanoes in their model. They did not have the downdrafts from intense rain storms.
Molina and Rowland developed the premise of a “one dimensional vertical diffusion model with eddy diffusion coefficients” — entirely based upon assumed values.
That is, Molina and Rowland stated that the CFCs, which are 1.4 to 3.7x heavier than air, just go straight up. In fact, any CFCs released at the surface just stay down here. Moreover, Molina and Rowland stated that the CFCs are not soluble in water so rainwater would not scrub them out of the air. Big deal.
Intense rains bring downdrafts. CFCs and several organics adsorb on dust particles as well as aerosols. unep.ch/ozone [4]
Some of the actual statements in the paper from Molina & Rowland:
“Calculations of the rate of photolysis of molecules at a given altitude at these
wavelengths is complicated by the intense narrow band structure in the SchumannRunge region, and the effective rates of vertical diffusion of molecules at these altitudes are also subject to substantial uncertainties.”
Please read the entire section on ‘Photolytic Sink’ in their paper. It’s all unmitigated bunkum.
Molina and Rowland were awarded the Nobel Prize for their pronouncement about CFCs and ozone destruction. The cash award for the Nobel Prize is approx. $900,000.
The Nobel Prize can also serve as an excellent door stop or shim for a wobbly table. Furthermore, Dr. Gordon Gribble of Dartmouth has catalogued thousands of naturally occurring chlorinated and brominated compounds, including CFCs emitted by volcanoes and large wildfires — even though it was claimed that CFCs are strictly man-made. www.google.com/search [5]
It is known that Mt. Erebus (photo, above) delivers CFCs in trace amounts over Antarctica. Likewise, the volcanoes of Iceland deliver CFCs into the Arctic. These heavy compounds just drift back down although there is always a trace equilibrium presence.
The Montreal Protocol to replace CFCs was established in 1987. All nations self-report and nobody can audit anybody. All of the original Freons@R are still produced in China and sold around the world. The specific location is known from downwind sampling over the Pacific Ocean. www.nature.com [6]
You can also buy any of these original refrigerants on eBay or Amazon. www.ebay.com [7] But Whoo-Hoo !! We have won the war on Chlorine and Bromine !! Now onto the war on Carbon !! If you declare war on elements of the Periodic Table, you gonna lose.
Download the full paper at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3592885
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/nasa-reports-arctic-stratospheric-ozonedepletion-hit-record-low-in-march/
[2] https://www.theweek.in/news/sci-tech/2020/04/26/ozone-layer-hole-over-arctic-closesconfirm-scientists.html
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231015304246
[4] https://unep.ch/ozone/pdf/stratopheric.pdf
[5] https://www.google.com/search?q=Naturally{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}20Occurring{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}20Organohalogen{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}20Compounds{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}20-{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}20A{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}20Comprehensive{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}20Update{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}20Gordon{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}20W.{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}20Gribble
[6] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02109-2
[7] https://www.ebay.com/p/1232730084
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jerry krause
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Hi Richard and PSI Readers,
Richard, you have given a well researched review of the general history of the ozone hole which has been published. But there are several fundamental problems of this story which are generally skipped over because readers (even scientists) do not like to read the detailed information necessary to begin to understand the solar-atmospheric-chemistry system involved.
What goes up must come down. How is this for common knowledge? What is it that goes up? Common, localized, short-lived, thunderstorms lift parcels of surface atmosphere to the top of the troposphere. Which top is at the highest altitude in the tropics. I doubt if anyone will question this.
But some might question this statement. It is all down hill from the topics. And that there is no need of any more energy input to this atmospheric system as this atmosphere from the top of the atmosphere comes down. Richard, you and the scientists to whom you refer, seldom ever explain how it is that the ‘atmospheric polar vortex’ forms. The simple explanation is it forms because the ‘all’ atmosphere over the winter polar circles is coming down over the winter polar circle and this atmosphere needs to be replaced by the stratospheric and mesospheric atmospheres from the lower latitudes. And the evidence of katabatic winds which flow down the slopes of the Antarctic Continent during the winter and the cold air masses which drift down from the Arctic Circle over the midwest of the US during the winter cannot be denied.
Richard and readers, one can seldom read that this circulation of the atmosphere above the troposphere is occurring as it flushes the ozone of the stratosphere to sea level during the winter.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Ken Hughes
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Yes, and to think that one of the projects I managed was the ICI “Flourinated CFC” production plant. We did the front end study at Snamprogetti in Basingstoke, but handed it over to Badgers in Florida for them to do the detailed design. What a complete waste of money and resources. Still, I got a nice trip to Florida out of it.
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Ken Hughes
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Yes, and to think that one of the projects I managed was the ICI “Flourinated CFC” production plant. We did the front end study at Snamprogetti in Basingstoke, but handed it over to Badgers in Florida for them to do the detailed design. What a complete waste of money and resources. Still, I got a nice trip to Florida out of it.
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Andy Rowlands
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I remember reading in Spaceflight magazine years ago about NASA images of the ozone over Antarctica, and they always said (at that time) there never was a hole, just a natural thinning over the poles. I’ve been saying that ever since every time the ‘ozone hole’ argument crops up.
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Finn McCool
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You are too polite, Andy.
Perhaps the only reason people mention it is because the IPCC class it as a greenhouse gas.
So it’s useless trying to educate them.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Finn’
I’ve wondered what exactly a “greenhouse gas” is. Is it a gas that produces heat, like methane, when it oxidizes in the atmosphere or ozone when it releases heats as it converts to O2 molecules releasing energy? Is it a gas molecule that supposedly reflects heat like they claim CO2 does? Or is it water that absorbs and stores heat? All molecules absorb radiated energy. Are greenhouse gases just those molecules that absorb infrared radiation?
Herb
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Joseph Olson
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Ozone is also produced by lightning, with average of 100 strikes per second world wide. Fluorine is highly reactive, thirteen most common Earth element, with hundreds of natural compounds. Montreal Protocol was beta test for Carbon forcing hoax.
“Volcanic Halocarbons” by Timothy Casey > Geologist-1011(.)net
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