THE OZONE HOLE - MITH OR REALITY?

Dear Friends,
Many years have elapsed since we heard or read about the ozone hole for the first time. But there are some fundamental questions that have never been raised, except for a very recent publication (Cooper, Milton W. - Behold the Pale Horse - Citizen's Agency for Joit Intelligence, cited by Rebagliatti, A. J. in "Mensajes", Buenos Aires, Febr 1998 pp. 24-30) and that are worth considering, trying to forget all argumentum aucthoritatis and dramatic expressions.

The first question is: How can chlorofluorocarbon mollecules reach the stratosphere, being very large mollecules, with mollecular weight (and correspondingly density) far above the average value for air?.

If chlorofluorocarbons and air were liquids, that stratify according to their densities, CFC would never reach the upper part of the atmosphere, but gases do not behave that way, they diffuse and can theoretically reach (in infinite time) all space.

But atmospheric air has an average "mollecular weight" of 28.8 (21% O2 x 32 + 79% N2 x 28) and chlorofluorocarbons go from 80 to more than 130, that is some 3 to 4 times more mollecular weight and consequently 3 to 4 times more density, so that the mixing and diffusion is very little.

In fact more than 99 % of CFC never reaches the stratosphere. Moreover the total chlorine ions (Cl-) due to human activity amounts to less than 8 thousand tons per year, as compared with more than 650 million tons from natural causes such as sea water, volcanoes, algae and plancton activity. (o.c. p 26).

The assertion that eventually all Cl- will reach the stratosphere is not true. If it were so, humanity should be much more concerned by the fact that all water vapour will have the same fate and eventually all liquid water would disappear, lost un outer space. (And water vapour is lighter than air).

The second one is: Why the ozone hole appears over the South Pole while CFC emisions are mostly generated in developed countries located between the Tropic of Cancer and the North Polar Circle?

For the answer see the last part of this writing.

The third question relates to the fact that the line joining the centers of Earth an Sun Forms an angle with the Equator plane that varies during the year between 27 23' North and 27 23'South. The ozone hole is located between the South Polar Circle and the South Pole, i.e. more than 66 degrees away from te Equator plane. This implies that radiation passing through it will never reach the Earth surface except for a few days around December 21st. when they would strike some parts of Antarctica, and in an almost horizontal direction (less than 23 degrees high) thus traversing a much longer path through atmosphere and hitting earth with an intensity proportional to the cosine of the incidence angle

The Sun cannot be seen in any part of the word outside a zone 27 23' on either side of the Equator. It can never be seen "through the ozone hole" -- between the Polar Circle and the Pole, in the same place that is occupied by of the Polar Star (or the Southern Cross) by night except in the places and time mentioned in the preceding paragraph. If you doubt and live between both polar circles, look at the sky to night and tomorrow.

The paper by Milton W. Cooper, mentioned at the beginning in fact states that the lack of ozone in the polar zone is due to the low intensity of ultra violet rays because of this low incidence angle, i.e. there is no ozone because there are not enough UV rays.

The reaction really is:

I would thank everyone for its comments on the preceding ideas, as well as for any information regarding publications about migration of CFC, and other sources of free Cl-

Rodolfo J. Naveiro
Please, send e-mail if you wish

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