HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK
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UNITE! Info #166en: 6/8 The "ozone hole" terror hoax
[Posted: 20.03.02]
[Continued from part 5/8]
15. WHY HAVE ALL "DEPLETION TREND" "DATA" AFTER
1998 VANISHED INTO A BIG BLACK HOLE?
If you search the Internet World Wide Web for articles with
"ozone depletion" propaganda, you'll find that there are a
large number of such from all the years up until 1998; then
they suddenly practically cease altogether.
The reason for this is of course that this big lie with each
passing year has come even more into conflict with reality.
An "ozone depletion trend" of, say, 3 percent per decade,
which there perhaps was in the 1980s, according to the "CFC
depletion" propagandists such as the WMO, would continue and
would, if anything, be bigger, not smaller, in the 1990s, and
in the next two decades too. Thus there in 2000 would be some
6 percent (at least) less global ozone than in 1980.
To ascertain quite clearly, in 2000 or today, whether there
had (has) in fact been a decrease of that order over the past
20 years or so perhaps still is not all that easy, because
of those quite large natural variations which there are.
But the silence, since some three years back, by the react-
tionary propgandists, on any "long term global ozone deple-
tion trend", is very telling anyway.
No international "data" on this are being shown any more.
What has continued, after 1989, is more or less only pro-
paganda concerning that local phenomenon, the Antarctic
"ozone hole", and (of course) such of the cruder kind, just
by scare statements with hardly any attempts at supporting
them.
The fact that the ozone layer, at least over the northern
hemisphere, has been unusually thick in recent years (2000-
2001) and apparently still is today, hasn't helped the "de-
pletion" propagandists either, of course. This fact of
course to a large extent is due to that maximum, one of the
bigger kind too, in sunspots which there was/is around the
year 2001 (if I understand things correctly). And the QBO
too seems to make for high ozone levels at higher latitudes
at present. (See under point 11 above.)
This is a temporary phenomenon. But also in the following
years, when the number of sunspots will decrease, for in-
stance (reaching a new minimum around 2007), and the QBO
will change phase (this is predicted already for the next
winter, with a change back some 26 months after that again),
the "CFCs (etc) ozone depletion" hoax will continue to come
more and more into conflict with the observed facts.
Unfortunately, the ruling imperialist war criminals already
have managed to enforce their anti-industrial and genocidal
bans against these vital substances, propagandistically "jus-
tified by" this hoax, and since it's they who still have
practically all the political power and practically all the
international propaganda resources too, it will be quite dif-
ficult for the people in the world to get these bans revoked
- as long as these conditions remain as they are.
Here's a little about how "global ozone depletion" propagan-
da has "developed" after 1998:
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), for instance -
the main "scientific" such propagandist in recent years -
publishes press releases on various questions; the latest,
#671, was on 07.03.2002. On ozone, in the most recent years
including 1998, there were only two:
Firstly, WMO #619, on 01.10.1998. It was headlined "Record
Ozone depletion in the Antarctic" (on this subject, see point
zz below) and had the following few lines on ozone levels
elsewhere:
"Relatively higher ozone dominated over the middle
latitudes - only 3 to 7% less than the pre-ozone-hole
averages. Maximum values of 430 to 480 m atm-cm [the
same as 430-480 DU - RM] appeared usually over the
ocean area in the sector separating the Antarctic
from New-Zealand and Australia.", and further:
"WMO is responsible for the international co-ordina-
tion of the atmospheric science and systematic obser-
vations in support of the Vienna Convention for the
Protection of the Ozone Layer. 'As the authoritative
scientific voice on atmospheric issues within the
United Nations family, WMO will continue to provide
up to date information on the status of the ozone
layer' said Professor Obasi" [Secretary-General of
WMO].
And secondly, WMO #652, on 15.09.2000, "on the occasion of
the International Day for Preservation of the Ozone Layer"
(there even is a such, 16 September, decided on by the UN!).
It was headlined, in familiar fashion: "Unprecedented rate of
ozone loss measured one to two weeks earlier over and near
Antarctica", but did not breathe a word about ozone levels
elsewhere. No later WMO press release has done this either.
This should be contrasted to those "estimates" by the WMO it-
self of "future ozone depletion", in its 1998 "Ozone Report
No. 44", which were quoted under point 14 above, and also to
some even more "precise" "predictions" about this under a
heading in that "Report", "Implications for Policy Formula-
tion":
"*The ozone layer is currently in its most vulnerable
state.* Total stratospheric loading of ozone-depleting
substances is expected to maximize before the year
2000. All other things being equal, the current ozone
losses (relative to the values observed in the 1970s)
would be close to the maximum. These are:
about 6% at Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes in
winter/spring;
about 3% at Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes in
summer/fall;
about 5% at Southern Hemisphere midlatitudes on a
year-round basis;
about 50% in the Antarctic spring; and
about 15% in the Arctic spring."
"Bigger ozone losses than ever", thus, "expected for the
years around 2000". And *not a word* on whether "this came
true" or not, in the *only* WMO press release in 2000 which
as much as *mentioned* ozone - which *none* of its later
such, so far, have done either.
This speaks volumes about what the actual results must have
been - although these stooges of the ruling war criminals',
the leadership of the WMO etc, absolutely refuse to show
people *what* they were.
The crude-type scare propaganda has continued, of course:
The fact that the ozone layer over Europe, for instance, in
2000-2001 (and still today) was/is thicker than in many years
before didn't prevent an Internet so-called MEDI-Report based
at Stuttgart, Germany, from screaming, on 05.04.2000 - avoi-
ding all mention of recent ozone level trends of course, not
to speak of the *unusually thick* ozone layer over that coun-
try precisely at that time - "OZONE LAYER OVER THE ARCTIC EX-
TREMELY THIN - CONSEQUENCES FOR EUROPE AND SUNBATHING"(!).
In that Stuttgart article, the old and out-of-season "news":
"Already in late November 1999, satellite measurements by the
European space travel organization ESA showed extremely low
ozone levels over Great Britain, Belgium, The Netherlands,
northern Germany and the entire Arctic", were presented, as
if this was somehow relevant concerning sunbathing in April
2000.
The homepage of the SMHI here in Sweden does show a 1980s-
1990s graph of ozone layer thickness, measured by its Norrkö-
ping station from 1983 on, with the summer values remaining
constant over the years and the spring ones decreasing a
little; according to the picture, the double graph, myste-
riously, goes on until 2000 (equally mysteriously starting in
1982), while the text reads "The thickness of the ozone layer
over Norrköping, 1983 - 1998".
Here too, thus, interest in long-term ozone layer thickness
trends seems to cease completely after 1998. This is the
present global bourgeois trend concerning this matter, al-
ready in itself a very clear indication that the whole "CFC
ozone depletion theory" precisely *is* pure hokum.
16. COULD CFC (ETC) RELEASES POSSIBLY CAUSE
OZONE DEPLETION, OR COULD THEY NOT?
If they could, then obviously only over the Antarctic, as
seen under point 13 above. Because of this and because of the
fact that the "CFC etc depletion" hoax, as to global ozone
levels, already is refuted by the obvious failure of its
long-term "depletion" predictions to come even close to what
actually shows up today, the question of whether releases of
these substances (at the levels of such up until the reactio-
nary bans) could cause any significant ozone depletion or not
is not all that important. Globally at least, those releases
which have taken place are not doing it.
It seems suitable to go into some data and arguments presen-
ted concerning this question anyway, both as a preparation
for the discussion below on the particular case of the Ant-
arctic and also because the "depletion" propagandists still
do maintain that CFCs etc can destroy ozone globally, though
their purported "mechanism" for this could not possibly
"work" elsewhere than over that particular region.
The CFCs and the related substances are chemical compounds,
carbohydrates, one could say, in which the hydrogen atoms
surrounding the carbon ones have been replaced by chlorine
(Cl) and fluorine (F) and, in some cases, bromine (Br). More
on these important and necessary substances under 19 below.
When releases of CFCs etc reach the stratosphere, the "de-
pletion theory" says, they with time are broken down by
ultraviolet radiation, releasing Cl which in its atomic form
or as a compound with oxygen, ClO, is "active" as a catalyst
for destryoing ozone, or releasing Br of which there is much
less but which on the other hand, supposedly, is a much more
effective catalyst for such destruction.
The rate of ozone destruction, according to the theory, is
dependent on how much of those "active" substances, Cl plus
ClO (and also Br, but I shall not write more about this sup-
posedly "minor factor" here), there is in the stratosphere.
The total amount of chlorine, both in the "active" forms Cl
and ClO and in various "inactive" forms which "constitute a
chlorine reserve", in the stratosphere, was some 2.6 ppbv
(volume parts per billion) in 1985 and, according to one
study, some 3.5 ppbv in 1994, says Parson (1997).
This of course is much less than the amounts of ozone in the
stratosphere - as much as 8-10 ppmv (volume parts per mil-
lion) in the 30-35 km region of it. But "one single atom of
Cl can, acting as a catalyst, destroy thousands of ozone mo-
lecules", says the theory.
On trends over time in the chlorine content of the strato-
sphere, Parson writes:
"The total amount of chlorine in the stratosphere has
increased by a factor of 2.5 since 1975 [Solomon] Du-
ring this time period the known natural sources have
shown no major increases. On the other hand, emis-
sions of CFC's and related manmade compounds have in-
creased dramatically, reaching a peak in 1987. Extra-
polating back, one infers that total stratospheric
chlorine has increased by a factor of 4 since 1950."
The "WMO Ozone Report No. 44" in 1998 said:
"The peak total tropospheric chlorine abundance was
3.7 ± 0.1 parts per billion (ppb) between mid-1992
and mid-1994. The declining abundance of total chlo-
rine is due principally to reduced emissions of me-
thyl chloroform. Chlorine from the major CFCs is
still increasing slightly."
Why the chlorine concentration in the troposphere (0-15 km
up) was mentioned here, instead of the supposedly relevant
one, that in the stratosphere, I don't know.
But the fact - which does seem to be an established one; Bi-
dinotto for instance says that in his six months of research,
as an amateur, on the "ozone depletion" question, he has seen
clear evidence of it - that the chlorine concentration in the
stratosphere did increase so considerably in a period after
1975, in itself shows that two of the arguments advanced by
Maduro and Schauerhammer in 1992 against the "CFC ozone de-
pletion" theory were clearly wrong.
This was, firstly, the one that there would be much more
chlorine in the stratosphere, enormously much more, even,
from natural sources, above all from evaporation of sea wa-
ter (with its content of salt, NaCl), than from manmade CFCs
etc. Parson replies, no doubt correctly, to this:
[Under "Commonly encountered objections":]
"Sea salt puts more chlorine into the atmosphere than
CFC's.
True, but not relevant because this chlorine is in a
form (HCl) that is rapidly removed from the tropo-
sphere. Even at sea level there is more chlorine pre-
sent in organic compounds than in HCl, and in the up-
per troposphere and lower stratosphere organic chlo-
rine dominates overwhelmingly."
Why chlorine ejected into the stratosphere by volcanoes is
not an important factor was already explained above, under
point 08.
Secondly, Maduro and Schauerhammer argued in 1992 that, since
the CFC (etc) molecules are so relatively heavy, it would
take a very long time for any such, if they were released in-
to the atmosphere, to rise to such great heights as 15+ km,
i.e., to the stratosphere, time enough for them to largely
disappear into, and/or be destroyed by, various "sinks" such
as certain bacteria, plants, the oceans etc.
The actual rise in the chlorine content of the stratosphere,
which can hardly be due to natural causes, contradicts that
argument too. And Parson replies to it, no doubt likewise
correctly:
[Under "Commonly encountered objections":]
"Most CFC's are decomposed by soil bacteria and other
terrestrial mechanisms.
This argument is based upon a misinterpretation of
measurements made by Khalil and Rasmussen. These
scientists did show that some CFC's such as CFC-11
and CFC-12 (but not CFC-113) were taken up by soils
in Australia [Khalil and Rasmussen 1989] and by rice
paddies in China [Khalil et al. 1990]. However, the
amounts that are disposed of in this way are small
compared to the amounts that end up in the strato
sphere.
A recent summary [Khalil and Rasmussen 1993] con-
cludes that out of a total of 9152 Gigagrams (Gg) of
CFC-11 produced, only 1 Gg has been removed by soils
and 33 Gg reside in the oceans; in contrast, 1709 Gg
have been photolyzed in the stratosphere, 741 Gg are
presently in the stratosphere, and 5360 Gg are in the
troposphere. Most of the remainder is still trapped
in foams, aerosols, etc. and has not yet been re-
leased to the atmosphere."
Which last shows something about what amounts of "latent"
sources of future "active" chlorine in the stratosphere there
were at that time.
But as Bidinotto for instance pointed out (in 1994), the
whole "natural v. man-made chlorine" argument is "a side
show, utterly irrelevant to more basic facts".
As already said above, the only way in which chlorine in the
stratoshpere could possibly destroy ozone is by a complicated
process requiring a number of different meteorogical ingre-
dients (some 5-6 of them), all of which are found together
only over the Antarctic, with the very particular conditions
in the stratosphere there, and only during a rather brief
time each year.
[Continued in part 7/8]
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