Does the Ozone Hole show the urgency of Action for Global Warming?

Question

Scientist say that the chemicals responsible for the growing ozone hole remain in the atmosphere for 40 - 100 years. The greenhouse gas CO2 remains in the atmosphere even longer (thus it's effect will go on a long time after we stop or greatly reduce emissions). Fortunately, actions against the ozone hole problem were decisive and fairly early after detecting the problem. And by 2070, it's estimated it will be closed up.

Some people naively expect instant results from our changes, but that's simply not reality in a complex system. It took 60 years of human activity to create the problem and it's taking 80 years to completely resolve it. Isn't this a call for Global Warming action now?

http://www.livescience.com/environment/071019-ap-ozone-hole.html

http://www.theozonehole.com

Answer 1

if you visit the natural history and science museum in d.c.

you will find out that global warming is a myth. the global temp has actually dropped since the early 1900's.

al gore .. if you research i would bet money that he owns interest in green products or technology.

wake up america.....you are being manipulated.

Answer 2

Yes and No.  Its time to take useful action, not just the action directed by the neo-Marxists against the more efficient, cleaner fuel users just because those are the hated industrial capitalists.  Meanwhile, the ones inefficiently using very polluting fuel, and other very polluting processes, are ignored because they are low-tech, wonderful, "traditional people."

The latter are most of the world’s population and they are exploding that ever more.  Don't you think something should be done there first?

So far as the ozone hole goes, I suspect that was another anti-capitalist scam.  Ozone is a sun cycle phenomenon and buffered by its concentration.  Taking some away allows room for more to be made.  The concentration is controlled by sun radiation, which varies, and over the poles has a yearly cycle, of course.

Global temperature has 100,000 year cycles, with smaller oscillations, we are in one of those now, caused by sun/earth orientation by wobble in orbit and axis.  See http://www.exploratorium.edu/climate/cry...

We are now sliding into another 50,000-year ice age.  We are oscillating from about 2 degrees down from the peak temperature 10,000 years ago.

We might have some small affect for a little while, but nothing we do can stop us from continuing that slide, within another 10,000 years, down toward a mostly frozen earth.  The best thing we can do is to begin reducing our population now; and that problem isn't coming from the evil, industrial capitalist world.

Answer 3

The ozone "hole" (actually, just a thinning down to 82%) is not a problem.

Ooooh, "scientists" say. Yawwwwwn.

The theory of global warming, also called anthromorphic global warming theory, is still... a theory!

(Note: Why don't we teach kids real science anymore?)

Answer 4

Let us look at CO2and the Ozone hole. CO2 is a very heavy gas and 90% is withen 100 ft of the surface . The plants need the CO2 in order to give us the O2 and they keep thee C to make oil out of.

The Ozone layer is formed where the solar winds collide with the earth's magnetic field . The hole in the Ozone layer is because all the magnetic field converges there. The things that affect the Ozone layer is totally out of Man's control.

Answer 5

It's a good example that our environmental impacts can last decades after we've essentially solved the problem.  As you note, global warming has this same atmospheric lifetime issue.  Scientists have said that we already have another 1°C of warming "in the pipeline" just from greenhouse gases we've already emitted.  So basically if we completely stop burning fossil fuels now, we'll still see the same amount of warming as has occurred over the past century.

Another issue is that the longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to minimize our global warming impact, as discussed here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

The ozone hole is a good parallel to global warming in many ways.  Our industry is causing an environmental change which is putting our species in danger, the effects will last for decades, and we have an international effort to try and solve the problem (but the Monreal Protocol was much more successful than Kyoto).

Rick - you make the same mistake deniers always make, looking at short-term data and ignoring the long-term:

http://jwocky.gsfc.nasa.gov/multi/min_oz...

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/hole/si...

Answer 6

You're absolutely right that prompt action solved that problem.  I think it's because no one disputed the danger, even though it couldn't be proven short of letting the breakdon advance to a lethal level.  It got pretty far up the Southern tip of South America and they did experience increased rates of skin cancer despite heavy sunscreen and similar measures.  Do you remember atomic fallout back in the Day?  Every day they would print the Strontium 90 levels in the paper with the weather report.  It varied a lot depending on the winds and the testing.  They printed it on the milk cartons in school.  I remember they said originally the danger level was 90 when they first started doing that.  It rose until it reached 90, and kept right on rising.  They did manage to get treaties to stop atmospheric testing and the level subsided.  My point is we didn't wait to find out what the fatal level was when our first guess turned out to be wrong, we just fixed the problem as we did with the ozone hole, lead, DDT and others.  We knew that point was out there, but we didn't feel the need to visit it.  It seemed unreasonable to s***w around or gamble with the fate of the human race at risk.  These people who feel differently about that in relation to Global Warming and other current problems don't seem to be thinking straight.  If they insist, they just have to be overruled at some point.  What right have they to decide other people's fate in such a high-handed way?

Answer 7

yes

Answer 8

Sorry Ken - You read to many 'slanted' blogs!

Read NASA:

Ozone hole opening and closing like it ALWAYS HAS for millions of years:

http://toms.gsfc.nasa.gov/eptoms/dataqua...

This web page from NASA has one Two IMPORTANT Facts:

OZONE is CREATED by UV (or lightening)

OZONE is found in ALL atmospheric levels. (not a hole)

http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/...

The rest of the web page is filled with scientific double talk of MAY, MIGHT etc.  

OZONE is a very temporary and unstable molecule that reverts back to O + O2 and is continually 'Created' in the presence of UV to produce O3.

To prove the 'heavier' CFCs exist in higher atmospheres in any level of consequence would be impossible.

I've concluded the savage man is right - Liberalism is a Mental Disorder = there is no reasoning with them!

Edit: Ultraviolet is also absorbed by water (H2O) and will not pass through glass.  

Does NASA talk about water absorbing UV?

THE ESSENCE IS: Without UV (or lightening storms) - OZONE can NOT EXIST.  

NO UV = No phony threat of 'Harmful UV'!!!!

Note the reference #4 = Solar Cycles - which also effect UV emissions!

NASA does have an political viewpoint/agenda!

Answer 9

ozone hole chemicals stay in atmosphere for 40-100 yrs

strep throat bacteria stays in your throat for 3-6 months

that doesn mean you get strep!

SAME THING!

Answer 10

Thought we solved down the problem with new air conditioner standards and the banning of hair spray? Jesus H Christ be nice if Scientist freakin knew anything that could be proven to work. I am packing my **** and moving to mars where it is warming up just to my liking. The h**l with the world it is doomed any day now and all we need is to give the UN money, buy Carbon Credits from Al Gore and we are saved! s***w that I am quiting my job and going on the govt well fare system so I can get fat, smoke pot and make about 40 kids out of wed lock. Doomed I tell you Doomed we are all freaking Dooooooomed. THE DAY AFTER TOMAROW is the best most accurate movie of all time outside of Star Wars. I am a decendent of Obi Wan Kinobi by the way but my FORCE does not work anymore.

Answer 11

The fact that the hole showed up two years ago bigger than ever suggest that CFCs played a minor role in the ozone hole.

"Dr Fraser says that, despite a decrease in the chemicals that deplete ozone, the 2005 Antarctic ozone hole was larger than that of 2004 because of lower temperatures in the stratosphere. While not significantly larger or deeper in comparison to those of the past decade, the Antarctic ozone hole is not showing any signs of a recovery either. "

http://www.physorg.com/news8059.html

While it goes on to say it will take a while for the "ozone depleting gases" to disappear, until it recovers the theory that CFCs cause the ozone hole will remain just that, a theory.

Also of note is the sentence "The Antarctic ozone hole this year was the fourth largest to be recorded since measurements of ozone depletion began in 1979. "  You see we had been measuring the ozone hole for a short while, before jumping to conclusion that cfcs are the cause.  The same way the environmentalist movement wants us to ban CO2 for "global warming".  They see a cause and effect, and jump to premature conclusions.

By the way, most studies before co2 became a political issue showed a shorter life span:

Beginning with the 7 to 10-year half-time of CO2 in the atmosphere estimated by Revelle and Seuss (69), there were 36 estimates of the atmospheric CO2 half-time based upon experimental measurements published between 1957 and 1992 (59). These range between 2 and 25 years, with a mean of 7.5, a median of 7.6, and an upper range average of about 10. Of the 36 values, 33 are 10 years or less.

(Robinson, Soon)