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UNITE! Info #166en: 4/8 The "ozone hole" terror hoax [Posted: 20.03.02] [Continued from part 3/8] 09. ULTRAVIOLET (UV) RADIATION AND ITS INTERACTION WITH OZONE That part of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation which is of interest in this context is shown in the table below. All of this radiation, of different wavelengths, of course is being emitted by the sun. Type of radiation Wavelengths (1 nm = 0.000,000,001 m) [infrared (heat) radiation 700 nm - 1 mm] visible light 400 nm - 700 nm ultraviolet A radiation (UV-A) 320 nm - 400 nm ultraviolet B radiation (UV-B) 280 nm - 320 nm ultraviolet C radiation (UV-C) 40 nm - 280 nm [X-rays 0.01 nm - 40 nm] These various types of radiation, all coming from the sun, are filtered out in various ways and to various extents by the atmosphere, so that only certain proportions of the radi- ation of the respective types reach the ground. Visible light accounts for less than 1 percent of all the energy emitted as radiation by the sun towards the earth, but it's hardly filtered away at all by the atmosphere. Almost 100 percent if it (the 400-700 nm wavelengths) reaches the ground, which is probably why human (and most animal) eyes have evolved to perceive precisely these wavelengths. Ultraviolet waves (UV-A, UV-B and UV-C) comprise 5 percent of the total energy from solar radiation that reaches Earth, and infrared waves comprise 40 percent of it. Neither ozone nor, for instance, "ordinary" oxygen (O2) filter out any important amounts of UV-A, so almost 100 percent of this radiation too reaches the ground. The amount of UV-A that reaches the ground is 100 times as large as the amount of UV-B that does this. UV-A causes skin tans (to various individual degrees) in white-skinned people, as does UV-B too. UV-A, "which is not absorbed by ozone", "is not usually thought to be especially dangerous", says Parson. He however notes too, as do Maduro and Schauerhammer, a possiblity, sug- gested by some scientists, that one particular kind of skin cancers, called "malignant melanoma", might be caused by UV-A. These melanoma have been on the rise, in some coun- tries, since the 1940s; they are infrequent but, in contrast to other skin cancers, sometimes fatal. They clearly are not caused by UV-B, and my sources, from 1992-97, agreed that there was then no certainty at all about what did cause them. Of UV-C, only very small amounts reach the earth's surface. Practically all of it is filtered out by oxygen, O2, in the atmosphere, some of it (the wavelengths below 240 nm), as seen above, breaking up some of these oxygen molecules in the stratosphere and in particular at its region some 30-35 km up, thus forming ozone. (Most of) UV-C, that's ozone-produ- cing stuff. UV-B is the biologically most active and important, both in a positive sense and a negative one, of the ultraviolet radia- tion types. Most of the incoming UV-B is filtered out by ozone (O3) and also by "ordinary" oxygen (O2) before it reaches the surface. So it's in relation to UV-B that the ozone layer has its most important "shielding" function. Ozone "absorbs very strongly in the ultraviolet region bet- ween about 3,300 and 2,200 Å," (or 330 to 220 nm; Å or Ång- ström is a unit often used earlier; 1 Å = 10^-10 m) "the strongest absorption being at a wavelength of about 2,500 Å" (250 nm) "where it is extremely intense", Dobson wrote in 1968 (as quoted in 1992). That is, ozone absorbs UV radiation best at a somewhat grea- ter wavelength, 250 nm, than the ones which create it; these are from 240 nm and downwards. In connection with this, Par- son asks one question and answers it: "If the ozone is lost, won't the UV light just pene- trate deeper into the atmosphere and make more ozone? This does happen to some extent - it's called 'self- healing' - and has the effect of moving ozone from the upper to the lower stratosphere. Recall that ozone is *created* by UV with wavelengths less than 240 nm, but functions by *absorbing* UV with wave- lengths greater than 240 nm. The peak of the ozone absorption band is at ~250 nm, and the cross-section falls off at shorter wave- lengths. The O2 and O3 absorption bands do overlap, though, and UV radiation between 200 and 240 nm has a good chance of being absorbed by *either* O2 or O3. [Rowland and Molina 1975] (Below 200 nm the O2 ab- sorption cross-section increases dramatically, and O3 absorption is insignificant in comparison.) Since there is some overlap, a decrease in ozone does lead to a small increase in absorption by O2. This is a weak feedback, however, and it does not compensate for the ozone destroyed." So this particular "repair" effect, one of "self-healing", a certain *rise* in the ozone formation, even, if the ozone layer gets thinner, is not all that strong. But the constant replenishment of ozone by the process described in point 08 above of course always goes on anyway, irrespective of whether the ozone layer at some point in time has gotten thinner or thicker. 10. THE BIOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE OF ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION, IN PARTICULAR THE UV-B TYPE UV-B is the radiation type that may cause sunburn in white- skinned people, if their exposure to it is too large, and possibly the non-lethal, relatively benign types of skin can- cer too (which darker-skinned people practically never get). But it also, in suitable doses, has quite vital positive ef- fects. Maduro and Schauerhammer say on this (pp. 170-176): "One unfortunate result of environmental propaganda over the past two decades has been the growing hege- mony of the belief that if a substance is toxic in high concentrations, it will be toxic in very low concentrations as well." ... (A very striking case of this is the reactionary phony'environmentalist' propaganda, by the 'Interna- tional Commission for Radiation Protection' [ICRP] and by all governments of the imperialist countries, since some 50 years back now, saying that *all* le- vels of ionizing radiation - from natural or manmade nuclear reactions - are 'harmful to people', though it has much longer been obvious that suitably small amounts of such radiation at least are harmless and it in the last few decades has been clearly proved too that they are even *beneficial* for people's health. On this, see e.g. Infos #125en and #163en.) "The fact that a substance is toxic in high concen- trations does not mean it will be toxic in low con- centrations. ... This point is entirely missed in the controversy over ultraviolet radiation. There is no question that mas- sive overexposure to both ultraviolet A and ultravio- let B can severely damage the human body. But the skin color of all human beings has adjusted to rela- tively small amounts of sunlight found at certain geographical latitudes; as long as that natural ratio is maintained, there is little danger of damage. Furthermore, ultraviolet radiation is *necessary* for the body's metabolism. Lack of ultraviolet radiation may be more dangerous than too much of it. Ultraviolet light shorter than 290 nm is toxic to all forms of *unpigmented* living cells." (The authors point out too that UV effectively kills certain types of bacteria.) "How then do living things on the Earth survive exposure to incoming ultraviolet radiation? Plants and algae have a variety of of photosynthetic pigments: chlorophylls, caratenoids, phycobilins and fucoxanthin; these absorb electromagnetic radiation even into the ultraviolet range and harness its ener- gy in ways useful to life. Most animals have fur, feathers, or scales that offer protection. Fish are partially shielded from ultraviolet radiation by wa- ter. And man has a skin pigment: melanin. The same ultraviolet radiation that is deadly in lar- ge doses to unprotected living cells, however, is ne- cessary to all life on this planet." (Actually, not to all. To the subterranean anaerobic bacteria, whose total biomass apparently is enormously much bigger than that of all other living things on earth and which may be the ones with which life started, UV is sheer poison. Some of those bacteria it is that con- vert much of the ever-present methane at great depths into oil; see Info #28en or the homepage of Thomas Gold: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/.) "No living thing" (among the higher-developed spe- cies, at least) " - not plants, not animals, not man - could long survive if ultraviolet radiation were totally screened out of the Earth's atmosphere. In human beings, normal exposure to ultraviolet light triggers the conversion of one of the cholesterols (7-dehydrocholesterol) found in the skin to calcife- rol, or vitamin D, a necessary nutrient. Deficiency in vitamin D leads to rickets and disturbances in calcium and phosphorus metabolism. ... Atmospheric scientist Hugh Ellsaesser maintains that 'Rickets is but one of the hazards of insufficient ultraviolet'. Writing in the Summer 1990 *21st Centu- ry Science and Technology* magazine, Ellsaesser pin- points lack of sufficient ultraviolet radiation as the cause of osteomalacia, a disease of aging: 'At present the most serious health hazard in the United States from insufficient ultraviolet or "vita- min D" is osteomalacia, or wasting bone loss in the elderly. While this process can be arrested or slowed by proper treatment, the best treatment appears to be to assure that there is both adequate "vitamin D" and minerals available during the growth period while the skeleton is forming... Bone fracture, particularly of the femur," (thigh) "among the elderly suffering from osteomalacia is a far more serious health problem than ordinary skin cancer. There are some 400,000 to 600,000 new cases of skin cancer per year in the United States, while among the 20 million Americans affected by osteomala- cia there are more than 1,200,000 bone fractures each year. These statistics strongly suggest that any increase in ultraviolet radiation resulting from ozone loss would, at least eventually, exert a beneficial impact on our health greater than the detrimental one now emphasized. This becomes even more credible when it is realized that our bodies are far more capable of letting us know when we are getting too much ultra- violet than they are at letting us know when we are getting too little.' [p. 9]" This is one factor which suggests that a certain (not too big) global ozone depletion would rather be a *good* thing than a bad one. There are other factors too. For agriculture in the higher latitudes, for instance, and for the general well-being of most people living there too, clearly it would be good if the ultraviolet radiation in these regions in- creased somewhat, to the levels of the regions a few degrees closer to the equator. (If there is really a tendency towards a larger percentage of cloud cover over these countries lately, as some observations seem to point to, which in that case perhaps prevents a further fraction of the UV radiation from reaching the ground, then it would be even better to have a somewhat thinner ozone layer. But I don't know whether cloud cover has actually increased or not.) Would not a certain (not too big) global ozone depletion be harmful to agriculture in the tropics and to people living there, then? No, it would have very little effect in those regions. Firstly, since the sun's entire radiation comes in more or less vertically there, the tropical regions have al- ways had many times as much UV radiation as the higher lati- tudes anyway; the entire ozone layer matters much less there. Secondly, as all agree - irrespective of whether there, in the 1980s, for instance, *was* some smaller depletion of the ozone over the higher latitudes, as some maintain - at least over the tropics, the ozone layer has *not* changed in thick- ness at all, over the time when measurements have taken place. This suggests that any change in the mean global ozone level would affect the ozone layer precisely over the tropics only very little. And the known manner in which ozone is con- tinously being created and depleted, due to natural causes, indicates that too. So, in the interest of practically everybody is rather a somewhat thinner ozone layer than a somewhat thicker one. 11. YEAR-TO-YEAR PERIODIC OZONE LEVEL VARIATIONS Ozone is formed, in the stratosphere over all regions on earth, due to the sun's ultraviolet radiation. This formation is biggest, naturally enough, over the tropics, close to the equator. From those regions, a certain transport of ozone to- wards the higher-latitude regions takes place, due to the winds. The various variations in the activity of the sun influence the rate of ozone formation. One well-known cycle of sun ac- tivity is the (approximately) 11-year sunspot cycle. The amount of radiation, including UV such, emitted by the sun increases with the number of sunspots. This causes periodic, 11-year, variations in the global mean ozone level (or total global ozone) too. Parson says that "This correlation has been verified, although its effect is small, about 2% from peak to trough averaged over the earth, about 4% in polar regions.", citing Stolarski et al. Maduro and Schauerhammer however maintain that total global ozone peaks and throughs have been twice as big, from +2% to -2%, i.e., some 4% from peak to through averaged over the earth, showing on their p. 78 a graph on this and one on sun- spots, going from 1957 to 1988, adapted from an article by J.K. Angell in *Journal of Climate*, November 1989. There's much more reason to believe that these authors are bringing the correct figure on this than that Parson would be, I hold. He on several other points shows insincerity. From the graph, which I cannot bring, "an 11-year and a 22-year cycle in ozone levels, matching the Sun's sunspot cycle, are clear- ly evident", Maduro and Schauerhammer say. These graphs show sunspot maxima, and matching ozone level ones, around the years 1957, 1968 and 1979. There presumably were such around 1990 and 2001 too, then. (I haven't verified this.) And the maxima around 1957 and 1979 are shown as bigger than that around 1968; this indicates a certain 22-year sunspot cycle too, whose existence I haven't checked out with other sources either but which would make for a somewhat bigger maximum in 2001 too. This could account in part for the ozone layer's being thicker in 2000-2001, over the northern hemi- sphere, than in many years before, and for the recent all- time highs in ozone level noted here in Sweden (see point 06 above). Another thing which makes for a year-to-year periodicity in ozone levels, this not over the entire globe but in the high- er latitudes, is that QBO (quasi-biennal oscillation of at- mospheric waves, proceeding from the equatorial lower strato- sphere) which was mentioned too in point 06 above. This is "a sudden shift in wind patterns, governed by solar variations, that occurs every two years." (More precisely, according to recent SMHI information, with a period of some 26 months.) "This shift is of major significance for planeta- ry waves, the giant waves in the stratosphere that move mas- ses of air, as ocean waves move sea water", according to Ma- duro and Schauerhammer, who also cite a study concerning its effects on the particular meteorological conditions over the Antarctic region and the ozone anomaly there - the "deple- tion" propagandists' "Antarctic ozone hole". (More on this under points 17-18 below.) Apparently, this wave pattern just now, and since more than a year back, is in a phase likewise making for a thick ozone layer over Sweden, for instance, which also helps explain that all-time ozone high here in February 2001 and the fact that the present level too (March 2002) still is much above the former all-time ozone high over Sweden, back in 1961. As already quoted above, the Swedish SMHI says, on the pre- sent local ozone situation: "Solar activity is likely to remain high this year too but is expected to decrease the next year. The QBO will change its phase rather soon, and this means that ozone levels will decrease in the coming winter and spring." How big changes, in percent, of the ozone layer thickness over higher latitudes are caused by the QBO, this probably is difficult to calculate. I've so far seen no data on this. On the reason(s) why the ozone layer over regions at higher latitudes actually, on the average, is *thicker* than over the tropics, despite the fact that it's over the tropics that ozone formation is largest (since the UV radiation hitting the stratosphere is at its most intense there), I've seen no explanation in the literature. The mean ozone layer thickness over the tropics is only some 220-250 DU (with only small seasonal and year-to-year varia- tions there), while that over the USA is some 300 DU (Parson says) and that over Sweden something like 330 DU (the thick- ness over both of these regions varying considerably with the seasons). As also seen under 08 above, one part of the natural process continually destroying ozone is due to incoming UV radiation too (some which hits and breaks up O2 and some which breaks up O3, and then in both cases ozone destruction occurs when an O atom liberated by this doesn't combine with O2 to create O3 [again] but with O3, to create two new O2 molecules). This type of ozone destruction thus must also be at its most in- tensive in the tropics. The explanation for the higher mean levels of ozone over the higher latitudes must have to do, I presume, with a delay between the formation of ozone, that process which is parti- cularly intensive over the tropics, and the destruction of it, more intensive too than elsewhere, in the tropics. Some of all that ozone formed, close to the equator, obviously gets time to blow away with the winds towards the higher la- titudes before it's eventually destroyed, by processes which in those regions are somewhat less intensive, on the average. [Continued in part 5/8] --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================