So it seems that this hole in the ozone is a yearly occurrence. CFCs left over from the old days get caught in a yearly wind and poke a hole above antartica. They’re not really sure why it’s bigger or why it happened earlier than previous years, but they believe it has something to do with an underwater volcano eruption from last year. I think that’s the jist of the article.
Man… people really don’t like reading articles so much as they like speculating about headlines.
And, while I feel like I should copy/paste the important bits, isn’t it just as easy for people to click the link and read the whole two minute read? Should I paste the full article and bold the important bits? Why should I have to do the work for people who honestly do not care about more than comment karma.
I appreciate the article OP. I wasn’t aware of the nature of the ozone hole. I also found the linked article that was published in January to be insightful.
Me too. I’ve been carrying it around in my head as “the time we listened to scientists, and almost everyone worked together on some short term pain for worldwide long term gain”. I was even hoping we might do something like that again.
Sorry to break it to you, we stopped using CFCs because a cheaper alternative came along. That it happened to be less suicidal was a happy coincidence.
There is some speculation that the unusual behavior of the ozone layer in 2023 is a result of the Tongan underwater volcano eruption in January 2022.
The immense amount of water vapor that was injected into the atmosphere likely just started reaching the south polar region after the end of the 2022 ozone hole, Antje said.
The water vapor could have led to a heightened formation of polar stratospheric clouds, allowing chlorofluorocarbons to react and accelerate ozone depletion.
It’s gonna kill everything. Then, it’s gonna reboot without humans. Eventually, after a short million years or so, the earth will be back on track until another species gets too “smart” and destroys itself… ))<>((
The last paragraph is completely irrelevant, as it has nothing to do with the ozone layer. You do not want ozone in the troposphere, but you do want it in the stratosphere.
But who hadnt it happen yet? It is saturday, you have yet to drink your coffee, but your dog needs a walk so you go out, take a wrong turn and BAM! you are in the stratosphere breathing Ozone!
We shrunk it and it was as good as done once everyone stopped using those gases.
Over the last few years satellites have picked up greatly increasing emissions of them from China. Hence it’s opening up again.
Oh and before any hexchud wants to say this is fake news or whatever:
We show that emissions from eastern mainland China are 7.0 ± 3.0 (±1 standard deviation) gigagrams per year higher in 2014–2017 than in 2008–2012, and that the increase in emissions arises primarily around the northeastern provinces of Shandong and Hebei. This increase accounts for a substantial fraction (at least 40 to 60 per cent) of the global rise in CFC-11 emissions. We find no evidence for a significant increase in CFC-11 emissions from any other eastern Asian countries or other regions of the world where there are available data for the detection of regional emissions.
Thanks for posting the finding links. I hadn’t heard this before and it gives me a good place to start reading. Crazy that we know this is bad for the earth but we keep doing it. I wrote that sentence and mid way through realized how naive it sounds 😖
I’m curious what the actual source is. CFCs are practically obsolete and there is no point in producing them when HCFCs are cheap and hydrocarbon refrigerants are practically free. You’d think China would be using R290 and R600a in any new builds since they’re so cost sensitive. You can even straight swap R290 to replace R22 if they want to use old compressors or something.
I’m wondering if this is a pile of old refrigeration equipment that was dumped and shipped to China, and is now being scrapped in an irresponsible manner or just corroding and leaking. I’m sure there’s loads of R11/12/22 out there, as R12 refrigerators are still regularly dropped off at our local scrap pile here in Canada.
Well the article says it's mostly caused by an underwater volcano's emission that happened last year, that's just reaching now the south pole, and concentrating there atm because of how winds work due to Earth's rotation.
Everybody is blaming anything they can, and not even bothering reading the news. Pretty on par with the internet.
It can repair itself, we just needed to stop putting aerosols into the air. Same deal now, apparently China needs to get its shit together and stop using the chemical the whole world already decided to stop using.
Yep, it’s pretty amazing how much not destroying the environment helps it recover… although the closer we get to a collapse, the more that ability to bounce back diminishes
Literally every aspect of our world is in a balance… Everything wears down over time, so the current state is basically a homeostasis between biological, geological, and astrological forces. The problem is that humans act on a far shorter time scale - 100 humans could cut down trees faster than a forest can regrow, 8 billion can change the atmospheric composition in a decade or two
That’s exactly why I got a vasectomy. If it really comes down to it adopting is the better choice since those kids are already stuck existing so might as well just try to make the world slight less miserable for them
Fertility rates are already below replacement. Africa will probably also get there within our lifetimes, so there will be nowhere to get new people from
We don’t need more people. Yes, we built a stupid economic system that expects constant growth, but we don’t need that system, either. When world population drops under a billion, let me know and I might change my mind.
Except the second article does mention ‘it avoids a fight during an election yeah with industry and republicans’ but then later looks like they are trying to say that’s not at all why and want to take time. I don’t know, sorta seems like the election played a part in the decision
Ground level ozone and the ozone hole are two different issues. The delayed EPA regulations would be limiting ozone produced. At ground level, ozone has various health hazards. The ozone hole is from ozone depleting substances reaching high altitude in the environment and destroying naturally occurring ozone. That high elevation ozone blocks UV light from the sun, and is protective for those of us who dislike skin cancer it what not.
Reading the second article I see what you mean. Still, no political momentum to correct course is annoying, though it does make a strange addition at the bottom of the article. They could have linked all manner of different protections that are being delayed if there are more.
Probably one of those times I need to lament the current state of journalism that that was included. I’d argue the ozone layer is one where there is global political momentum with an example of some recent mystery emissions such as this article. That said this article we were already discussing seems to bring up some other mechanisms for the hole enlarging beyond the usual ozone depleting substances.
I don’t think anywhere is good but I would guess that being farther from the equator is better since there is less direct sunlight. I could be wrong though.
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