New Study Could Upend How We Think About the Ozone Layer and Health (msn.com) 30
First the Washington Post summarizes what scientists believed in the 1970s. Chlorofluorocarbons, or (CFCs, "could float up into the stratosphere and break down a protective layer of ozone, allowing more ultraviolet light to enter the atmosphere and harm humans, crops, and entire ecosystems. In fact, this had already happened: There was a hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole."
Experts view the subsequent treaty to cut down on the use of CFCs — the 1987 Montreal Protocol — as a landmark environmental achievement. Scientists estimate that the pact has prevented millions of cases of skin cancer. Today, the ozone hole is recovering well. But a provocative scientific paper published Friday in the journal AGU Advances suggests that the link between the ozone layer and human health is more complicated than it seems. Under certain circumstances, the researchers write, small decreases in the ozone layer could now save lives...
The researchers initially were examining something else: what would happen to the chemistry of the atmosphere if humans injected sulfates into the stratosphere, a controversial strategy to cool the planet. But in the process, they found that the chemicals would alter the atmosphere's ozone content — with consequences for human health. Sulfate chemicals are known to deplete ozone high in the atmosphere, but, the paper shows, they could also decrease ground-level air pollution. Ozone, or O3, occurs in two forms in the atmosphere: what scientists call "good ozone" in the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere that sits 6 to 31 miles above the surface, and "bad ozone" in the troposphere, the atmospheric layer that reaches to the ground... an air pollutant in the troposphere that comes from power plants, cars, and industrial sites. It can be deadly, exacerbating respiratory diseases. According to one study, over 400,000 people died from long-term exposure to ozone in 2019 alone.
The new paper shows that "good ozone" and "bad ozone" can interact in unexpected ways. When good ozone is depleted, more UV light reaches the troposphere, which increases the rate of skin cancer. But UV light also catalyzes chemical reactions in the troposphere, including one in which hydroxide, or OH — which some scientists call the "Pac-Man of the atmosphere" — swallows up pollutants. The more UV light, the more OH eats up dangerous pollutants. This decrease in ground-level air pollution, according to the study, could actually outweigh the rise in skin cancer. A small decrease in stratospheric ozone, according to their study, could save between 33,000 and 86,000 lives every year.
Only a few papers have made this connection, including one in 2018 that similarly found that a small decrease in the ozone layer could save lives from air pollution... One way to read the study is as another warning of how dangerous ground-level air pollution is and how far the world still needs to go to clean it up. (Outdoor air pollution writ large is associated with an estimated 4.2 million premature deaths every year.)
The researchers initially were examining something else: what would happen to the chemistry of the atmosphere if humans injected sulfates into the stratosphere, a controversial strategy to cool the planet. But in the process, they found that the chemicals would alter the atmosphere's ozone content — with consequences for human health. Sulfate chemicals are known to deplete ozone high in the atmosphere, but, the paper shows, they could also decrease ground-level air pollution. Ozone, or O3, occurs in two forms in the atmosphere: what scientists call "good ozone" in the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere that sits 6 to 31 miles above the surface, and "bad ozone" in the troposphere, the atmospheric layer that reaches to the ground... an air pollutant in the troposphere that comes from power plants, cars, and industrial sites. It can be deadly, exacerbating respiratory diseases. According to one study, over 400,000 people died from long-term exposure to ozone in 2019 alone.
The new paper shows that "good ozone" and "bad ozone" can interact in unexpected ways. When good ozone is depleted, more UV light reaches the troposphere, which increases the rate of skin cancer. But UV light also catalyzes chemical reactions in the troposphere, including one in which hydroxide, or OH — which some scientists call the "Pac-Man of the atmosphere" — swallows up pollutants. The more UV light, the more OH eats up dangerous pollutants. This decrease in ground-level air pollution, according to the study, could actually outweigh the rise in skin cancer. A small decrease in stratospheric ozone, according to their study, could save between 33,000 and 86,000 lives every year.
Only a few papers have made this connection, including one in 2018 that similarly found that a small decrease in the ozone layer could save lives from air pollution... One way to read the study is as another warning of how dangerous ground-level air pollution is and how far the world still needs to go to clean it up. (Outdoor air pollution writ large is associated with an estimated 4.2 million premature deaths every year.)
Ozone is ozone is ozone... (Score:3)
Actual ozone facts (Score:4, Informative)
Natural ozone concentration is 10-15 ppb throughout the atmosphere, but low ground pollution around 70 ppb is unhealthy.
https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.g... [nasa.gov]
That story is a little like removing DHMO from the atmosphere to empty pools and reduce drownings.
Re:Actual ozone facts (Score:5, Interesting)
Natural ozone concentration is 10-15 ppb throughout the atmosphere, but low ground pollution around 70 ppb is unhealthy.
https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.g... [nasa.gov]
That story is a little like removing DHMO from the atmosphere to empty pools and reduce drownings.
Caught a 404 on the link.
But what caught my eye is the weird push to inject Sulfur aerosols into the atmosphere that is going on.
Did you note that? Saying that we should reduce the amount of ozone FTS:
"This decrease in ground-level air pollution, according to the study, could actually outweigh the rise in skin cancer. A small decrease in stratospheric ozone, according to their study, could save between 33,000 and 86,000 lives every year."
Some people view that as a silver bullet to cure AGW, The can inject a lot into the atmosphere - and a fine side effect that we can continue to burn fossil fuels, Pump as much CO2 and methane as we like - because we'll just put more SO2 - it's a perfect solution, Hooray for Us we're so smart!
As long as we don't mind the ecological disaster that cooling the planet with that method will do. What's more, we'll have to do that for thousands of years. Because once we stop, the earth will just warm up again. Just like it did after 1816, "The Year Without a Summer". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
We messed up already. My reasonably informed opinion is what appears to be the normalization of the concept of reentering the era of acid rain will just make things worse. https://www.epa.gov/acidrain/e... [epa.gov]
Re: (Score:3)
Oops, missing the final L
https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.g... [nasa.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
Oops, missing the final L
https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.g... [nasa.gov]
Thanks much.
Yep, it's bad enough that people want to inject sulfur aerosols. The troposphere is definitely no place to do it.
Re: (Score:3)
There is a weird push for everything these days. Nobody can just actually understand things and let them be. They are fixated on what could be/should be instead of just fixing stuff using common sense and tools we already have. Most of it appears to be some kind of elite driven behind the scenes shit we'll never know the truth behind. Information overload and technology development has people looking at everything as having a problem that needs fixed.
Yep, While it might be possible to help pull some CO2 out of the atmosphere, whatever we do can't be the half assed monovariant "science", where someone notes something that did something, so let's do a whole lot of that something. Enter sulfur aerosols.
To put it bluntly we screwed up. And it isn't even that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere. There has been more CO2 in the atmosphere in the past.
We just did it in a little less than 300 years. Too quickly for the globe to adapt. Creation of unstable we
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Re: Actual ozone facts (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Sadly, SO* does a great job of reflecting sunlight. We saw this esp in Chinaâ(TM)s cities and now in indias. However, this is a lazy solution to ppl/businesses/governments not changing habits, and the real damage would be to accelerate the destruction of the oceanâ(TM)s life.
Yes, that's why they call it an anti-greenhouse gas. For the pedants, it isn't a gas the way it happens. It occurs as an aerosol in th eatmosphere.
But can you imagine the process here? First we have to get the sulfur dioxide from the sources.
Which is burning elemental sulfur, although burning coal and High sulfur oil do a pretty good job as well.
So in their desperation and AGW fear, the people grasping at this aren't thinking about it, but they now inadvertantly endorse the coal industry, along wit
dhmo (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Here, we present experimental evidence that OH radicals are spontaneously produced at the air–water interface of aqueous droplets in the dark and the absence of known precursors, possibly due to the strong electric field that forms at such interfaces."
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.10... [pnas.org]
"To test their hypothesis, the research team measured OH concentrations in different vials – some containing an air-water surface and others containing only water without any air – and tracked OH production i
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Everything is self cleaning given a long enough timeframe.
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And you believed her?
Re:The atmosphere is also good at cleaning itself (Score:4, Funny)
...Researchers at the University of California, Irvine [uci.edu], have found that a strong electric field between airborne water droplets and surrounding air can create a molecule called hydroxide (OH) ...
Hydroxyl radicals, not "hydroxide molecules".
The reporter (credited as "staff writer") apparently didn't know beans about chemistry. It's right in the second sentence of the abstract of the paper discussed. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.10... [pnas.org]
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Haha. You are suddenly discovering that "journalists" are idiots?
"Found way to fix pollution with more pollution!" (Score:1, Funny)
fuck off.
No thanks (Score:1)
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Quit ... (Score:2)
There are bigger fish to fry.
We can ban CFCs but can't fix climate change? (Score:2)
We took away people's cars and made whole industries change for the poor baby ozone molecules, and now it's shown to be a totally worthless endeavor.
Well guess what? I have 7 12 oz. cans of vintage R-12. I'm putting atmospheric trioxygen on notice.
Re: We can ban CFCs but can't fix climate change? (Score:2)
And there's the UV and cataracts problem (Score:2)
Among the things UV does, it also causes cataracts.
So there's another trade-off for increasing UV in the lower atmosphere.
There's also breaking down plastics faster which would also be accelerated by increased ozone. That's not always good.
Ugh (Score:2)
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Killing off ozone to lower deaths from air pollution is one of the worst and laziest ideas that Iâ(TM)ve heard in a while. Instead, stop nations from polluting. Far better and easier.
I don't know about easier.
Huh. (Score:2)
It's almost as if the planet is a complicated series of interconnected systems where making changes in one area will lead to corresponding changes elsewhere.
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racism (Score:2)
The move to ban CFCs was purely racist, because by far the preponderance of skin cancers is among white people, but black people have to pay more for fixing or replacing their air conditioners and refrigerators.