Ozone hole stable?

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5276994.stm

Not sure if any of the climate change skeptics on the boards ever disputed the effect of CFC's on the Ozone layer (it was back in the 70's), but it would appear that their significantly reduced usage is allowing the Ozone layer to repair itself.

What I find interesting is looking at the tactics the skeptics used at the time:

Sound familiar to anyone?

http://www.wunderground.com/education/ozone_skeptics.asp

(Of course this might be some hippie-communist media weather forcasting website! )

 

The ozone layer is starting to replenish? Awesome.

 

From what I understand, replenishment of the ozone layer was never the problem. It replenishes itself on its own over time. The problem was we were sending CFC's into the atmosphere (and thus, depleting ozone) faster than it could regenerate. If true, this is great news - and is a testament to how the voice of the people can bring about change despite the heavy hand of big business.

 

The ozone layer is being destroyed one week and replenished the next? That is great news!!!
(By the way, can someone tell when the BBC stopped being hippie-communist)

 

this is a bad thing to announce, if people start to think that the ozone is fixing itself (which ofcourse is true) then they will become complacent, we need to be telling people that the ozone is being destroyed in order to keep their minds fixed on helping to save it

 

I don't think that's the case at all. Yes, the ozone layer is certainly an important part of the ecosystem. However, as Death Rabbit points out, if we are now depleting the ozone layer at a slower rate than it is replenishing, then there really isn't a problem, is there?

 

Yeah, but now no one can say that global climate regimes don't accomplish anything.

 

We have enough oxygen(O2) and radiation, so ozone layer replenishes itself. The important thing is allowing it to replenish( no CFC)

 

this whole ozone layer/global warming crap is just a natural cycle (nature having the mensies). I hope that all hippy-communist live long enough to see that so they can jump up and down and say, " Yea, we saved the Earth!".

 

Someone...someone still believes this?

 

As I have mentioned many times before, I doubt that there are any climatologists on the Boards who say for certain either way whether global warming is real or not. Anybody who tries to argue heatedly either way will just make me laugh.

 

Uh yeah, it has been going on for billions of years?

 

We are just speeding up the process that's all

 

Yes, but when you smack a pendulum, it not only goes faster, it goes farther. And if you smack it at an angle, and it can even go all wacky, heading sideways as well as back and forth. Who knows what that could do to to the environment if practiced regularly, but leave it alone, and it may just settle into normal (or at least semi-normal) rhythms.

 

@ Harbourboy
Yeah for sure. There are top scientists on both sides of the fence arguing till the cows come home. Unfortunately the weather isn't something easily testable.

 

Felinoid has hit it on the head with that example. He forgot to add that if you smack it around too much it could just fall off however how much smacking is required is another issue. Nobody knows if it is possible to push an ecosystem too far to the stage that it'll never recover naturally simply because no experiment has ever been conducted on a global scale.

So in my opinion it's a bit better to play it safe and NOT try to overheat the world at least till we're able to colonise other planets (assuming we ever are able to colonise other planets).

 

(HB had the best quote on it, so I used his, but this comment isn't specifically directed at him.)

I will concede that there are members of the scientific community that are not sold on global warming. However, this topic started as a discussion on the ozone layer. No one in the scientific community will argue that there are not two big holes in the ozone layer (located around the polar regions). They can even show you pictures using IR/UV analysis that the holes exist as a much higher percentage of UV light penetrates to the earth's surface in these regions.

It should also be noted that global warming is not the same thing as having a hole in the ozone layer. It is true that they can occur concurrently, but they are not dependent upon one another. If we decided to start pumping out high quantities of CFCs again while at the same time banning the use of fossil fuels, you'd likely see a decrease in global warming but the hole in the ozone layer would start to grow again. So just because both the hole in the ozone layer and global warming are climatic issues does not mean they are intrinsicly linked.

 

Discourse analysis is always something that goes over the heads of people willing to go into a heated argument.

Ineteresting point Carcaroth and good of you to bring it up in here, but that this type of discourse took place with CFC's in the scientific and industrial communities is not unexpectable at all, of course.

With variations it's been going on with the tobacco industry as well. The exeption is that human health is less complex than weather patterns, or the results and the causal relations are easier to see with humans than with weather and the ozone layer.

The sheer volume and thus effect of human activity on our plantes ecosystems is most often understated. We are a force of nature, for our biomass, for our industry and for our actions concerning our environment.

The power of the human race is something not seen before in the history of living things in our planet as far as we can tell. This is not hubris, it should be taken into account when making decisions that have global consequences. And many of those actions we think that have to do with only ourselves affects so many other people and our ecosystem that we should be really careful about what we do as a human race.