The Greenhouse Effect

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The LATEST G-HOUSE NEWS.

How the Northern IceCap is shrinking.
Note that this denotes width-shrink.
The thickness diminished by half!

OZONE.

Nov 21, 03: Environmental negotiations seen by U.S. fruit growers as critical to future profitability failed to break a deadlock on a U.S. request to increase use of a fumigant known to destroy the ozone layer, delegates said. Use of the controversial fumigant methyl bromide will instead be tackled at an extraordinary meeting next year.

Nov 13, 03: American farmers were at odds with environmental experts and European governments on the eve of a vote that could decide whether U.S. growers can increase the use of a fumigant known to destroy the ozone layer.
. . Methyl bromide, which kills soil pests before crops are planted, is scheduled to be phased out by all developed nations by January 1, 2005, under a global agreement to protect the atmosphere. Around 180 signatory countries to the Montreal Protocol are due to vote on the U.S. request on Friday at the close of a weeklong meeting on the ozone layer hosted by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi.
. . The protocol --seen by experts as the most successful global environmental treaty-- requires signatory states to phase out the use of some 95 chemicals that damage the ozone layer. "Methyl bromide is the most dangerous ozone depleting chemical that is still in widespread use, and is also a cause of prostate cancer," David Doniger, policy director at the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council said. The United States, the European Union and Japan have cut down use of methyl bromide to 30 percent of previous production, but the United States now wants to be allowed to increase its use to 38.2 percent in 2005.

Oct 3, 03: The ozone hole over the South Pole, already as large as it has ever been, is also lasting longer this year, heightening concern about harmful UV radiation reaching the Earth, the United Nations' weather organization said. Compounding matters, the thinnest area is the largest ever measured, roughly two-thirds of the hole's total size, the World Meteorological Organization said. "The ozone hole is getting larger, deeper and is lasting longer."

Sept 12, 03: The gaping, man-made hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has hit record proportions for this time of year and could get bigger still within the next few days, a leading scientist said. In 2002, the hole suddenly shrank, raising hopes it had turned the corner and was starting to close. But a scientist said they now believe this was an abnormality due to atmospheric conditions, and that the 2003 expansion was back to more "normal" activity.
. . "We could have to wait another decade to be able to say definitively that the worst is over and it is starting to recover."

Sept 4, 03: Tiny fungi that live under the Rocky Mountain snowpack get busy reproducing in the winter and may affect global warming, U.S. scientists said. Unlike most life, which hibernates or hunkers down in the winter, these fungi proliferate --creating measurable amounts of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, the researchers said. About 40 percent of Earth's land surface is covered by snow during the winter.

AUG 22, 03: The ozone hole over the Antarctic is growing at a rate that suggests it could be headed for a record size this year, Australian scientists said. In 2000, NASA said the ozone hole expanded to a record 10.9 million square miles, three times the size of Australia or the United States excluding Alaska.
. . Scientists at Australia's Davis Antarctic base saw the first signs of cooling of the lower stratosphere, 15 to 25 km up, about six weeks earlier than usual. In a visual sign the ozone hole would grow rapidly this year, scientists have reported the early appearance of stratospheric clouds. Clouds do not usually form in the stratosphere, due to its extreme dryness, but during some winters temperatures become low enough to allow their formation.
. . The full extent of the 2003 ozone hole will not be known until the end of September, as August and September are the coldest months for the South Pole. Temperatures begin to warm by early October and the ozone layer will then start to recover.
. . The 1997 Kyoto treaty set in place a global process to reduce greenhouse gases which deplete the ozone layer, but the world's biggest polluter, the United States, has not signed.

In the tropics, ozone levels are typically between 250 and 300 Dobson Units year-round. In temperate regions, seasonal variations can produce large swings in ozone levels, reaching as high as 475 Dobson Units in some areas, and as low as 300. A reading of 100 Dobson Units means that if all the ozone in the air above a point were brought down to sea-level pressure and cooled to freezing it would form a layer 1 centimeter thick. An ozone hole is the area with total column ozone below 220 Dobson Units.

June 14, 03: Providing the hydrogen needed by all those fuel cells might create a cloudier, cooler planet, with larger and longer-lasting atmospheric ozone holes over the poles. In producing and transporting hydrogen needed to fuel the aspiring technology, roughly 10 percent to 20 percent of the gas can be expected to leak into the atmosphere. Quadrupling the levels of hydrogen gas --actually a molecule two atoms of hydrogen-- in the air, from the current 0.5 parts per million, would create more water vapor in the stratosphere as the hydrogen combines with oxygen, resulting in more cloud cover, the report said.
. . Computer models used by study author Tracey Tromp suggested stratospheric temperatures could cool by 0.5 degrees Celsius, slowing the arrival of spring in the North and South polar regions and expanding the size, depth and longevity of the ozone holes.
. . More hydrogen in the air would likely also have a direct impact on the Earth's teeming surface, as it is a nutrient for microbes, it said.

Feb 6, 03: Contrary to Chicken Little's warning, the sky isn't falling --it's rising.
. . An important part of it, anyway --the "tropopause," the roof of Earth's lower atmosphere. Its rise --by an average of about 650 feet globally over the last 22 years-- is new evidence for the reality of global warming, scientists say.
. . Another reason for the tropopause rise, Santer said in an interview, is the disintegration of stratospheric ozone gas by commercially generated pollutants called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). It's too early to say which of the two deserves the larger blame, he adds. Ozone gas is a natural constituent of the stratosphere. Not only does it shield Earth from cancer-causing solar radiation, it also absorbs much incoming sunlight, warming the stratosphere.
. . Result: the stratosphere cools and contracts, thus pulling its lowest part, the tropopause, even further upward. It's too early to say how a higher tropopause will affect terrestrial weather, scientists acknowledge. The tropopause typically limits the height of severe storms. The famous wispy "anvil" atop thunderclouds marks where the cloud usually stops rising as it bumps up against the tropopause and the high- speed winds of the stratosphere.
. . Pending further research, it's anyone's guess whether a higher tropopause would lead to taller thunderclouds, with possible consequences such as more violent downdrafts as rain-cooled air plunges from greater heights.

Declining levels of chlorine from banned chlorofluorocarbons should enable the ozone to return to early-1980s levels by 2040. But another study, conducted by physicist Drew Shindell of NASA, suggests that recovery of the ozone layer will be delayed 10 to 20 years by rising levels of two other gases -—methane and nitrous oxide—- that also contribute to greenhouse warming. At low latitudes, methane in the stratosphere breaks down into hydrogen oxides, which attack ozone. Nitrous oxide can decompose to form ozone-eating nitrogen oxides. "In 60 or 70 years, there should be no more depletion from chlorine, but since there will be all these greenhouse gases, it will not look like it used to in the 1970s", Shindell says.

July 22, 02: Not a single European Union country has shown it is doing enough to protect the ozone layer from damage by man-made chemicals, EU authorities said. The European Commission said none of the 15 member states had shown how they intended to ensure ozone-depleting chemicals in scrapped refrigerators or old fire extinguishers would be safely removed to stop them worsening the hole in the ozone layer.
. . The regulation has already caused upset in Britain where an absence of recycling facilities able to deal with the chemicals has caused a "fridge mountain" to develop. Under the rules, fridges can no longer be shredded for metals recycling before the chemicals are removed.

Oct 14, 01: Ozone Hole Smaller but Radiation Risk Higher.
. . This year's ozone hole over Antarctica is likely to last longer than last year's and spread more harmful ultra-violet radiation over the southern hemisphere, New Zealand scientists said.
. . The ozone hole forms in the southern spring over Antarctica and as it breaks up, it reduces ozone levels throughout a huge swath of the southern hemisphere --increasing ultraviolet (UV) radiation which contributes to skin cancers and eye cataracts.
. . In 2000, the hole reached a (then-) record 11.6 million square miles --three times the size of the United States. This year saw a slightly smaller 10 million square mile hole at its peak in September, but it was more stable and likely to last longer, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) said.
. . When it breaks up, you get little filaments of the ozone-depleted air that go across the mid-latitudes. Ozone levels over the southern hemisphere's temperate zone have dropped 15 percent over the past 20 years, Wood added. "The dilution effect from the ozone hole in the Antarctic is responsible for around half of the changes in UV that we've seen in the southern hemisphere."
. . Ozone molecules, made up of three atoms of oxygen, form in a thin layer of the atmosphere around 6-18 miles above the earth and absorb ultraviolet radiation from the sun. The ozone holes are triggered by a combination of chlorine pollutants in the atmosphere, extremely cold temperatures and the return of sunlight to Antarctica in spring. A reduction in chlorine pollution has scientists hoping that current ozone holes are at their most severe, but they say it could be 50 years before levels are restored to normal. But... "Our research has suggested that climate change could further delay the recovery in ozone levels", Wood said.

May 10, 01: In findings were published in the journal Science, an international team of researchers led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology said: atmospheric levels of the atmosphere's main cleansing agent, hydroxyl radical (OH) --which scrubs the air of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide-- rose during the 1980s but fell by even larger amounts during the 1990s, according to their study.
. . The chemical promotes the destruction of air pollutants and many gases involved in ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect. The chemical exists only fleetingly in the lower atmosphere and cannot be measured directly. But its existence can be inferred from long-term global measurements of a man-made gas that it obliterates.

April 24, 01: - The protective ozone layer over the North Pole appears to have stabilized after years of thinning, but the gain may be temporary, United Nations weather experts say.
. . Scientists from the U.N. World Meteorological Organization said the recovery may be attributed to a warmer than usual winter and the current peak in the 11-year cycle of the sun, and not to global cuts in the use of harmful chemicals.
. . But bromides, another ozone-destroyer, often used in weed and pest killers, are not being eliminated as quickly, particularly in developing countries.
. . Even with the cut in chemical use, it's going to be at least 50 years before ozone levels recover.

3-29-01: Ozone-eating clouds that erode Earth's protection against ultraviolet radiation are born in thin rings of supercold air over the North and South Poles, scientists reported.
. . And as the Earth's surface gets warmer, due to heat trapped by so-called greenhouse gases, the stratosphere gets colder, making it an even better place to create the ozone-depleting clouds, NASA researcher Azadeh Tabazadeh said.
. . The polar stratospheric clouds pack a double punch, Tabazadeh said: they take away nitrogen, which can mitigate the effects of ozone depletion, and they also activate chlorine, which spurs ozone depletion.
. . "The surface warming causes a cooling in the stratosphere and the cooling promotes more ozone depletion", Tabazadeh said. "Global warming is actually affecting the ozone depletion."
. . "I think the best thing to do is try to control the global warming issue", she said.

April 17, 01: Using climate modeling and satellite data, NASA research linked long-term cooling in the upper atmosphere with ozone depletion over populated areas. The results showed that increasing water vapor in the stratosphere could delay ozone recovery and increase the rate of global warming.
. . When more water vapor works its way into the stratosphere, the water molecules can be broken down, releasing reactive molecules that can destroy ozone. Both water vapor and ozone are greenhouse gases.

~1-20-00: Over half of the five to seven percent increase in skin cancer each year in Europe was caused by thinning of the ozone, said Paul Simon, director of the Belgian Institute of Space Aeronomy.
The development of an Ozone Hole usually follows a period of unusually low temperatures coupled with high levels of pollutants (CFCs) in the stratosphere, which destroy the ozone layer.

Oct 9, 00. A wide swath of southern Chile is on alert as dangerous levels of ultraviolet radiation hit peaks because of the depletion of the protective ozone layer over the Antarctic.
. . Health authorities warned the 120,000 residents of this wool and fishing city -- one of the few populated areas beneath the ozone hole in the southern hemisphere -- not to go out in the sun during the day.
. . The ozone hole over the Antarctic in 2000 reached its deepest since scientists began measuring it 15 years ago, with more than 50 percent depletion being recorded throughout most of the hole, United Nations experts said OCT 6TH.
. . That has left this windy city 1,400 miles south of Chile's capital, Santiago, -- and also the Argentine city of Ushuaia-- on the nearby island Tierra del Fuego -- is open to harmful ultraviolet radiation which can cause skin cancer and (importantly) destroy tiny plants that are the basis of the food chain. Exposure can cause human skin burns in 7 minutes.
. . Ultraviolet radiation levels hit an all-time peak Oct 7th, '00. NASA said the hole spread over 11 million square miles, an area three times larger than the land mass of the United States.

4-5-00: The [99-00] winter in the arctic caused one of the worst ozone losses ever, and it's the fault of human pollution, scientists from NASA and the European Union reported.
. Measurements from the ER-2 (SR-70 former spy-) plane show ozone over the arctic has decreased about 60 percent just between January and mid-March. Satellite data backs this up.
. There is no complete "ozone hole" in the arctic--tho it's thin. But the depletion found this year shows that human- created chlorine compounds are doing damage in the far north.
. Certain chlorine compounds destroy the protective ozone layer, but only when it is extremely cold and a bit sunny, as it was this winter--according to Paul Newman, a scientist who worked on the ozone observations.
. The chlorine has caused a slight depletion of ozone in the northern hemisphere, including northern Europe and the northern United States.

The ozone hole above Antarctica may not be damaging life in the ocean below after all. If Californian researchers are right, then increased ultraviolet radiation is having scarcely any effect on the growth of marine plankton, the base of the ocean's food chain.

UV CATARACTS. . 10-9-98: It seems only now proved--tho they "knew" it for decades: UV causes cataracts. South-coast Aussie fishermen get it (and skin cancer) a lot more lately. / The annual Ozone Hole over the S Pole is the biggest ever... again.

RAIN. . 8-6-98. Arizona State University: Climatologists find that it rains more on weekends because of buildup of pollution particles during week. The particles stimulate rain. Fridays averaged 22% more than Mondays. Mark Twain was wrong --everybody is doing something about the weather!

DESERTIFICATION. Officials from more than 150 countries gathered in Nov, 99 in Brazil to assess a U.N.-led effort launched in 1992 to keep fertile land from turning into barren desert and discuss ways to finance the fight.
Deforestation, climate change, huge population growth and over-farming and grazing are largely blamed for turning 57,919 square miles -- an area larger than Greece -- to dust each year.
About 40 percent of the world's land is suffering from the effects of desertification. The damage costs governments more than $4 billion a year and affects more than 1 billion people, many of whom have been forced to migrate to cities and other countries in search of work and food.
The Recife Initiative signed on Saturday aims to stem the mounting ecological and social catastrophes that were most thoroughly detailed by acutely affected African nations.
But spats between advanced economies and the developing world over who should foot the bill ultimately dashed hopes of major budged increases for the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification.

THE NEGATIVE RAINFOREST . 12-17-98: Nature Mag. Future G'house warming: As a result of the local drying effect of El Nino [and human's fires], Brazil's rainforest has released 200 million tons more CO₂ than it took up this year, and it's likely to continue. What used to be the Amazon Forest is now a negative effector! If the oceans die further, and the forests stop helping, what's left?

Greenhouse weather, likely.
. . 09/20/02: Without saying it's raining more these days, a group of researchers has shown that when it does rain in the United States, it rains for a longer stretch. Kenneth Kunkel of the Illinois State Water Survey, along with colleagues, dug into more than six decades of rainfall records (through 1996) at 1,200 recording stations.
. . The researchers then analyzed the true deluges --when it rained for seven days straight or longer-- to see if these extreme events occur more frequently.
They do --climbing at a rate of 3 percent per decade. But the change is confined to regions: extreme events have doubled in parts of the Great Lakes region and the Southwest. Most of the increase has been during spring, summer and autumn.

For views on global warming not filtered through fuel-industry-funded right-wing think tanks, read through these:

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