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Op-Ed: NOAA 2014 study — Humans definitely influencing climate

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Sydney – A new study called “Explaining Extreme Events of 2014 from a Climate Perspective” has definitely added some heat to the climate debate. This is going to be another highly controversial report. Pity of it is that nothing new will be said about it.

The study is actually the result of 32 groups of scientists researching 28 localized events. It’s a long list, continent by continent. Some might call it a study in thermodynamics in a closed system, others might call it a statement of the obvious.

It must be said that it’s interesting reading with some almost counter-intuitive stuff as well. Even the Table of Contents is worth reading. Antarctic sea ice formation offshore, for example, is the result of cold air going away from the continent, forming ice out to sea. It’s all basically thermodynamics, just on a gigantic scale.

The full download is a PDF on the AMS website, published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

There are 32 case studies. The first thing you’ll notice reading this report is a lot of number crunching and pretty stringent choice of expression. This isn’t a press release. It’s a study, and the citations, backups, comparative analyses, etc. are all pretty much according to the current norm of “spell everything out”.

Considerable effort has been put in to graphics, which for a nice change are useful and clear, showing comparative data and anomalies.

The other thing you’ll notice is a total lack of any claims to omniscience. There simply are no “pronouncements”, despite the media image of NOAA as some sort of shill for climate science. The overall impression I get is of someone calling a sports event as it happens. One part, the cold winter of 2013-14, is basically just saying what happened. The finding is that the risks of extremes are caused by mean temperatures but no clear long term trend because of the nature of the events.

“Sensationalism”, it ain’t. The overall impression is that the extreme weather events aren’t a great basis for prediction, but even the very careful long term predictions include the increasing likelihood of more extreme events.

One very hot topic, pun intended, is the jet stream’s “waviness”. The jet stream is a major dynamic, which has so far been credited with everything from the disastrous Russian fires of 2013 to the US ice storms. The theory here is that the jet streams, penetrating further south, cause extreme weather, and this is exacerbated by temperature rises.

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Not such major call. If heat rises, and heat transfers from hot to cold areas, what’s new? The real issue is creating a global perspective. Also bear in mind that “greenhouse” includes the full spectrum of cycles which underpin life on Earth, including:

1. The water cycle

2. The oxygen cycle

3. The nitrogen cycle

4. The carbon cycle.

If this goes on the fritz so does the world.

Discussion

The finding of human caused events causing changes, also, naturally, put a bomb under the “natural cycle” theory of climate change denial. Climate does change naturally, and has changed drastically, many times. That’s normal; but in many cases, it changes the world into a very different Earth.

Humans couldn’t have lived at all in some geological eras and climates. The climate and the environment were quite different. In the dinosaur ages, many familiar plants didn’t exist. Grasses, on which human economy has depended since the hunter gatherer days, didn’t exist, for example. Nor did flowering plants, until the Cretaceous.

In other eras, the equator was so hot even the dinosaurs couldn’t live there, albeit in a very different continental configuration. These days, the equator is the sweat band of the Earth, and the seas are comparatively hot.

The various cycles are directly impacted by climate and land use:

Oxygen cycle – Oxidization is a core process of life. CO2 eats up a lot of oxygen. There are currently anoxic (no oxygen) areas in many traditional fishing grounds. These fishing grounds are full of giant jellyfish, protected from predators by lack of oxygen. Lack of oxygen doesn’t help human metabolisms much, either.

Water cycle – The water cycle responds to temperatures. Deluges and droughts often coexist side by side. Some of the worst droughts we’ve ever had in Australia coincided with severe flooding.

Nitrogen cycle – The nitrogen cycle is a core element of plant growth. No plants = no food for just about everything. This cycle depends on water and oxygen at the micro and macro levels.

Carbon cycle – The movement of carbon through ecologies is critical to carbon-based life. Screw that up enough, and you get anomalies. In some cases, the greenhouse effect actually is acting like a greenhouse, promoting plant growth. That said – heat only supports growth to a point. After that, it consumes energy and affects plant health.

The fact is that the climate is changing, and not for the better. Humans contributing billions of tons of carbon per day obviously isn’t helping. The average car generates more toxins per mileage than an army of smokers over its product life.

The weird cocktails of chemical compounds are another imponderable factor. It’s halfwit alchemy on a global scale. Heat mixes chemicals and elements. The result, which includes virtually any mix of industrial materials, chemical byproducts and oxides, isn’t “safe for baby”. Particulate materials, the usual suspects for just about all pollution and respiratory issues, also conduct heat. So heat loss is slower, therefore temperatures remain higher than they would otherwise be. So an increase in temperatures is therefore hardly unexpected. If you know anything at all about thermodynamics, you won’t need a lot of help reading this report.

NOAA is simply calling a spade a spade. This is simply a series of studies of major events, all happening in one year. This is the fourth study since 2011, and of course, someone will simply say it’s not happening, or that any number of other causes are involved, from a mini-solar winter to natural change.

The fact is that if the climate changes, there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it. The resources now being wasted so prolifically won’t be around to help manage the effects. Ironically, the most valuable resource of all, carbon, which can be used for far more valuable and more environmentally responsible purposes, is the one most wasted.

Poetic or karmic justice; the world doesn’t need humans, humans need it. When it comes to a choice between money and breathing, however, I’m sure some committee will find in favor of money. Nice knowing you, humanity – Well, not really. Do drop in again sometime.

This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of DigitalJournal.com or andrewchernoff.wordpress.com

Source: Op-Ed: NOAA 2014 study — Humans definitely influencing climate

Antarctic Ozone Layer Recovery Impacted By Rising Levels Of Classes Of Ozone-Depleting Gases Attacking Earth’s Ozone Layer….Just Saying

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Arctic Ozone Layer Concerns Raised After Odd Arctic Ozone ‘Hole’ Found in 2011

October 8, 2015        Andrew Chernoff       Just-saying

It was this time last year that the United Nations released a report heralding the news that the the ozone hole that appears annually over Antarctica was showing it had stopped increasing and was showing signs of thickening.

The report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), also indicated that it would take at least a decade before the hole over the Antarctic would start to shrink.

According to the report:

The phase-out of ozone depleting substances has had a positive spin-off for the global climate because many of these substances are also potent greenhouse gases. However, the assessment report cautions that the rapid increase in certain substitutes, which are themselves also potent greenhouse gases, has the potential to undermine these gains. The assessment also notes that there are possible approaches to avoiding the harmful climate effects of these substitutes.

“There are positive indications that the ozone layer is on track to recovery towards the middle of the century. The Montreal Protocol – one of the world’s most successful environmental treaties – has protected the stratospheric ozone layer and avoided enhanced UV radiation reaching the earth’s surface,” said UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

“However, the challenges that we face are still huge. The success of the Montreal Protocol should encourage further action not only on the protection and recovery of the ozone layer but also on climate. On September 23, the UN Secretary General will host Heads of State in New York in an effort to catalyse global action on climate. The Montreal Protocol community, with its tangible achievements, is in a position to provide strong evidence that global cooperation and concerted action are the key ingredients to secure the protection of our global commons,” he added.

“International action on the ozone layer is a major environmental success story,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. “This should encourage us to display the same level of urgency and unity to tackle the even greater challenge of climate change. This latest assessment provides solid science to policy-makers about the intricate relationship between ozone and climate and the need for mutually-supportive measures to protect life on earth for future generations.”

“Human activities will continue to change the composition of the atmosphere. WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch programme will therefore continue its crucial monitoring, research and assessment activities to provide scientific data needed to understand and ultimately predict environmental changes, as it has done for the past 25 years” said Mr Jarraud.

Early this year, Australian news reported that scientists  discovered previously neglected class of ozone-depleting gases increasing and having an effect on the ozone layer. The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, looked at two decades of raw data provided by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

According to the news article:

Researchers at Leeds University in northern England said two computer models highlighted the impact of so-called ‘very short-lived substances’ (VSLS) that deplete the stratospheric shield.

The damage they do to the ozone layer is significant and likely to increase, they said, as emissions of man-made chlorine gases rise.

Ironically, one of the chemicals named in the report, dichloromethane, is used in the manufacture of substitutes for ozone-depleting gases outlawed by the UN’s 1987 Montreal Protocol.

VSLS are gases that usually break down in less than six months. They are not covered by the landmark Montreal Protocol that requires the phaseout of longer-lasting chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs) and halon gases.

“Our model simulations indicate that VSLS account for a significant portion of ozone loss in the stratosphere,” lead investigator Ryan Hossaini said.

“In the Antarctic region, where the ozone hole forms each year and where ozone decreases are the most dramatic, we estimate that VSLS account for about 12.5 per cent of the total ozone loss.

“Globally averaged, the ozone loss due to VSLS in the lower stratosphere could be as much as 25 per cent, though it is much smaller at higher altitude.”

Around 90 per cent of VSLS are natural — they are bromine compounds produced by seaweed and the ocean’s phytoplankton.

The rest is man-made chlorine gases, and their contribution to the VSLS total is rising fast.

“Dichloromethane appears to be one of the most abundant man-made VSLS that we know of,” said Hossaini.

Compared with the notorious CFCs, dichloromethane’s impact today is small. The computer models suggest it reduces the ozone layer by less than one per cent, he said.

“However, our study also shows that the atmospheric concentration of dichloromethane has increased dramatically in recent years,” said Hossaini.

“At some locations its atmospheric concentration has doubled since the late 1990s.”

ARCTIC OZONE LAYER

In 2011, according to a NASA study, cold temperatures, chlorine and a stagnant atmosphere caused a thinning in the ozone layer over the Arctic in 2011.

According to the study conclusion:

Even when both poles of the planet undergo ozone losses during the winter, the Arctic’s ozone depletion tends to be milder and shorter-lived than the Antarctic’s. This is because the three key ingredients needed for ozone-destroying chemical reactions -chlorine from man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), frigid temperatures and sunlight- are not usually present in the Arctic at the same time: the northernmost latitudes are generally not cold enough when the sun reappears in the sky in early spring. Still, in 2011, ozone concentrations in the Arctic atmosphere were about 20 percent lower than its late winter average.

The new study shows that, while chlorine in the Arctic stratosphere was the ultimate culprit of the severe ozone loss of winter of 2011, unusually cold and persistent temperatures also spurred ozone destruction. Furthermore, uncommon atmospheric conditions blocked wind-driven transport of ozone from the tropics, halting the seasonal ozone resupply until April.

“You can safely say that 2011 was very atypical: In over 30 years of satellite records, we hadn’t seen any time where it was this cold for this long,” said Susan E. Strahan, an atmospheric scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and main author of the new paper, which was recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres.

“Arctic ozone levels were possibly the lowest ever recorded, but they were still significantly higher than the Antarctic’s,” Strahan said. ” There was about half as much ozone loss as in the Antarctic and the ozone levels remained well above 220 Dobson units, which is the threshold for calling the ozone loss a ‘hole’ in the Antarctic – so the Arctic ozone loss of 2011 didn’t constitute an ozone hole.”

According to livescience.com, on its coverage of the study:

Strahan and her team calculate that two-thirds of the thinning was caused by a combination of chlorine pollution and extreme cold. The remaining third was caused by the oddly quiet atmosphere, which prevented ozone molecules from elsewhere from moving in to fill the gap.

The ozone layer over the Arctic returned to normal in April 2011. It’s unlikely that such thinning will become a reoccurring problem, because the meteorological conditions were so odd, Strahan said. Not only that, but CFC levels in the atmosphere are still declining.

“If 30 years from now we had the same meteorological conditions again, there would actually be less chlorine in the atmosphere, so the ozone depletion probably wouldn’t be as severe,” she said.

Ongoing scrutiny continues on the Arctic and its ozone layer, as the following video indicates:

What does all this mean?

While we are doing more to lessen the impact of human pollution on earth, more still needs to be done. In saying that though, odd weather happenings and other climate issues out of our immediate, short term control, still impact our ability to continue and advance the timetable that we set for ourselves to solve the many issues affecting our environment……Just saying….

INFORMATION ON THE OZONE LAYER: