Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Larger Than Usual, Scientists Say (www.cbc.ca) 52
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: Scientists say the Southern Hemisphere ozone hole is larger than usual and already surpasses the size of Antarctica. The European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) said Thursday that the ozone hole, which appears every year during the Southern Hemisphere spring, has grown considerably in the past week following an average start. "Forecasts show that this year's hole has evolved into a rather larger than usual one," said Vincent-Henri Peuch, who heads the EU's satellite monitoring service. "We are looking at a quite big and potentially also deep ozone hole," he said. The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987, led to a ban on a group of chemicals called halocarbons that were blamed for exacerbating the annual ozone hole. Experts say it's likely to take until the 2060s for ozone-depleting substances to be completely phased out. "[S]cientists have been closely monitoring the development of this year's ozone hole over the South Pole, which has now reached an extent larger than Antarctica," says the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. "After a rather standard start, the 2021 ozone hole has considerably grown in the last two weeks and is now larger than 75% of ozone holes at that stage in the season since 1979."
Vincent-Henri Peuch, Director of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, adds: "This year, the ozone hole developed as expected at the start of the season. It seems pretty similar to last year's, which also wasn't really exceptional until early September, but then turned into one of the largest and longest-lasting ozone holes in our data record later in the season. Now our forecasts show that this year's hole has evolved into a rather larger than usual one. The vortex is quite stable and the stratospheric temperatures are even lower than last year, so it may continue to grow slightly over the next two or three weeks."
Vincent-Henri Peuch, Director of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, adds: "This year, the ozone hole developed as expected at the start of the season. It seems pretty similar to last year's, which also wasn't really exceptional until early September, but then turned into one of the largest and longest-lasting ozone holes in our data record later in the season. Now our forecasts show that this year's hole has evolved into a rather larger than usual one. The vortex is quite stable and the stratospheric temperatures are even lower than last year, so it may continue to grow slightly over the next two or three weeks."
Just to be sure (Score:4, Interesting)
I would check if a country or two are not illegally producing and using CFC
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Slashdot story from 2019 ... (Score:5, Informative)
Significantly Large New Emissions From Banned CFCs Traced To China, Say Scientists [slashdot.org]
Is it racist to point out the obvious? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just like older industrial, developed countries did in the past, China is taking its turn dropping a deuce on the entire planet. And they're doing it faster than other countries did 200 years ago.
At what point will those corrupt Chinese officials going to finally go after their own IP stealing, lead paint on toys spraying, coal burning, shark fin soup eating, plastic junk spewing assholes? Is it going to take a war with them to get them on the rest of the world's page? We can't keep putting off dealing with their pollution that offsets what the rest of the world tries to do.
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>> Is it racist to point out the obvious?
Nope, and even me (who is a super leftist by Slashdot standards) has no love at all for the Chinese Communisty Party.
There are some people that will get offended at everything, but they don't represent the entire side of a political divide.
That said, there's no scenario where a war with China results in less pollution - burning cities, jet fuel, nuclear war are all beyond horrendous for life and the environment.
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Fascist and communist are just 2 sides of the same nasty coin. You could argue China is now a capitalist dictatorship but it makes little odds to the people who suffer the authoritarianism regardless.
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Go far enough left or right and you meet the other side again. I think this is because the more people go to the extremes ranges that the more likely they are to drop their core ideals and instead focus on maintaining control and restricting rights of others with different views, and eventually they've got nothing leftover but the authoritarianism. So, crack down on the free press for example, happens on the far left and the far right and then it gets justified that the press is lying, undermining the reg
Re:Is it racist to point out the obvious? (Score:4, Interesting)
Corrupt Chinese officials have been having a crackdown, and it's apparently working.
https://www.climatechangenews.... [climatechangenews.com]
A Chinese government crackdown on producers and buyers of illegal CFC gases is working, research has found.
Levels of the ozone-harming and planet-warming CFC-11 gas fell over east Asia in 2019, a study published in the scientific journal Nature on Wednesday concluded.
The study put this fall down to âoetimely reporting and subsequent action by industry and government in Chinaâ.
Avipsa Mahapatra, climate campaign lead at the NGO Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), said this was âoeabsolutely great news from our planetâ(TM)s perspective as well as from an ozone perspectiveâ.
Re: Is it racist to point out the obvious? (Score:2)
Is it going to take a war with them to get them on the rest of the world's page?
Why would that work?
China clamped down on it after that report. (Score:1, Insightful)
Well good thing they have been clamping down on it pretty hard after the report.
https://www.dw.com/en/ozone-la... [dw.com]
But then there's going to be stupid people here complaining about freedoms and China being authoritarian dictatorship versus communist, and complaining that they are cracking down on freedoms. Just when a man is trying to make a penny. These are the same idiots who complained about freedom of eating transfats, and free use of asbestos.
Hello shill (Score:2)
Hows the weather in Peking today?
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Oh dear, the party won't be pleased with your loss of composure. It'll be back to the training camp for you!
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I love how teenagers like you is you genuinely think writing that kind of thing will shock people. Newflash boy , no one over the age of 20 would care, but your desperation is fucking hilarious :) Shill trolls like you are the gift that just keep on giving!
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I love how the logic-challenged seem to think that anything that doesn't try to make $country look bad must be the work of a pro-$country shill.
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Look to yourself pal. Anyone who implies china isn't cracking down on the freedoms of its people is either a shill or a moron.
Re: Hello shill (Score:2)
As it turns out the point being made is that any crackdown reduces freedom despite whatever public good it may serve.
This includes the freedom to smoke which last time I was in the states was heavily reduced... or the freedom to drive any car you choose but then again there are emissions standards which again, reduce freedom.
If your position was well rounded it wouldn't be to merely say "oh but the freedons" but instead make a systemic argument that Chinese government unduly reduces the freedom of the masse
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I implied no such thing. You, however, try to defend faulty logic with more faulty logic.
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Deutsche Welle is hardly a mouthpiece of the CCP.
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However, the AC that implied that China is not cracking down on the freedoms of their people, is a mouthpiece of the CCP, hence the later use of wumao as an insult against the person pointing it out.
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Which freedoms? Since the US has a constitution that guarantees certain freedoms, if the government oversteps their bounds, there are judicial remedies available.
Meanwhile, in China, if you complain you disappear...there is a significant difference there.
Since you were arguing against a strawman, does that mean that the lack of intelligence is on your side since it was your strawman, and not me you were arguing against? I never brought up America, since they don't even compare. We were talking ab
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It's just ducky!
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>These are the same idiots who complained about freedom of eating transfats
There are some natural trans fats that are ok. E.G: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . It counteracts the effect of Linoleic Acid, which is pretty toxic to humans and underlays a lot of the metabolic disorder in the West by messing up the electron transport chain and satiety signaling.
Pretty much all artificially generated trans fats, like those in margarine are toxic.
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Re:Nah (Score:5, Informative)
I was not genius level intelligent at the age of 12 like you. But I just read the Wikipedia page on ozone depletion. It says that the ozone hole over the antarctic opens up in antarctic spring. It says that the spring sunlight actually accelerates the ozone depletion which is kind of the opposite of what you are saying. Late spring or early summer the "hole" closes up. This seems a bit different from what you are saying. You seem to be implying that the ozone level should be pretty much correspondent with sunlight level. But actually the ozone hole is closed all winter, and only opens in the early spring.
I agree with you that sunlight can't strike the polar region in the winter (for that pole). The sun is below the horizon for months on end. You don't even have to draw a picture. All you have to know is that polar winters are dark and the sun never comes up for months.
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I can't see the post you are replying to, it must have been modded down vastly. But ozone is indeed created as from ultraviolet light + oxygen.
Stratospheric ozone is formed [noaa.gov] naturally by chemical reactions involving solar ultraviolet radiation (sunlight) and oxygen molecules, which make up 21% of the atmosphere. In the first step, solar ultraviolet radiation breaks apart one oxygen molecule (O2) to produce two oxygen atoms (2 O) (see Figure Q2-1). In the second step, each of these highly reactive atoms combines with an oxygen molecule
to produce an ozone molecule (O3). These reactions occur continually whenever solar ultraviolet radiation is present in the stratosphere. As a result, the largest ozone production occurs in the tropical stratosphere
That last sentence probably leads us the answer. It's produced in the tropics and probably takes time to migrate to the arctic to fill the hole.
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Some [acs.org] scientists have actually done physical experiments, including those more than 12 years old.
They have come to different conclusions, backed up by facts [nasa.gov]:
From the historical record we know that total column ozone values of less than 220 Dobson Units were not observed prior to 1979. From an aircraft field mission over Antarctica we also know that a total column ozone level of less than 220 Dobson Units is a result of catalyzed ozone loss from chlorine and bromine compounds. For these reasons, we use 220 Dobson Units as the boundary of the region representing ozone loss.
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I've always found the whole topic hilarious because the truth is so completely obvious I worked it out myself when I was about 12 years old. You don't even have to run an physical experiment. Just a thought experiment will do the job.
When you were twelve? That was, what, 3 years ago?
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Confusing use of 'forecast' .... (Score:2)
"Forecasts show that this year's hole has evolved into a rather larger than usual one ..."
'Forecasts' are a prediction, 'has evolved' is not. Did they mean that the forecasts predicted this or that it is larger than forecast?
If it's the latter, it could simply be that their model is still not correct?
And there are certainly less CFC's released annually than in the past even if China is still producing them. So given the observations, that in turn also suggests that maybe the model is not correct.
We put s
Re:Confusing use of 'forecast' .... (Score:5, Informative)
Get yer goggles on (Score:2)
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Shooting yourself in the foot (Score:2)
It's all sunshine and lollypops when the first-world countries ban things like CFCs and mandate expensive recapturing equipment. But right across the border in Mexico, you can buy cans of CFC automotive A/C refrigerant and Mexican mechanics vent the old stuff right into the atmosphere without a care in the world. Environmentalism only works if everybody does it. Once you give third-world countries a pass because they're poor or they were supposedly oppressed or some other B.S. excuse, it all falls apart.
ban does no good when nations continue with CFCs (Score:2)
Another foam-maker told EIA that their connections with the local environmental administration meant they received a warning when an inspection was planned. “Local officers would call me and tell me to shut down my factory. Our workers just gather and hide together,” he said. [climatechangenews.com]
We have to get all nations to STOP producing CFCs, burning coal, etc. A few like CHina, have no interest in following treaties. Just as we got afte