Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Ozone Hole Reduced Credit: SVS, TOMS, NASA Although a new ozone hole has formed again this year over the South Pole, this time it is a little bit smaller than the year before. Ozone is important because it shields us from damaging ultraviolet sunlight. Ozone is vulnerable, though, to CFCs and halons being released into the atmosphere. International efforts to reduce the use of these damaging chemicals really are having a positive effect on their atmospheric abundance. This year, however, the slightly reduced size of the ozone hole is mostly due to relatively mild weather, which reduces the efficiency of ozone depletion. In the above false-color picture taken earlier this month, low ozone levels are shown in blue.
Still a good news for the people lives in Australia and the surrounding area.....Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
During the years of high CFCs usage, the amount of CFCs produced was about 1,100,000 tons a year. The estimated chlorine contained in the CFCs released to the atmosphere was estimated at 7,500 tons a year. Let's compare some facts about yearly chlorine input to the atmosphere: Provided by CFCs: 7,500 tons By Ocean biota: 5,000,000 tons By biomass burning: 8,400,000 tons By Volcanoes: 36,000,000 tons Chlorine provided by Seawater: 600,000,000 total of man-made chlorine: <b>7,500 tons</b> total of naturally produced chlorine: <b>649,400,000 tons.</b> And some guys got a Nobel Prize because they insisted that 7,500 tons of chlorine can make more damage than 649 Million tons! This speaks very poorly about the standards used by the Swedish Academy of Sciences for evaluating "junkscience". This would be a laughable matter --if it were not a catastrophic event for mankind. The Ozone scare was the spearhead of the cataract of unscientific claims on environmental issues that came later. Someone in the board asked for a scientific reference to the amount of chlorine and other gases emitted by the Mount Erebus volcano in Antarctica. Here it is: W.I. Rose, R.I. Chuan, and P.R. Kyle, 1985, "Rate of Sulphur Dioxide Emission from Erebus Volcano, Antarctica, December 1983", <i>Nature</i>, Vol. 318 (Aug. 22), pp. 710-712.
