New hole in the atmosphere discovered

originally posted by: stirling
SE Asia is largely COAL fired.....this creates an inordinate amount of the Sulphur stuff id say......
China uses a lot of coal and its smog is second only to Mexico city or maybe worse now....
Ther hole may be a cumulative event too......well have to wait and see because they WILL keep on using coal to power their industrialisation.....

you have seemingly forgotten the same thing as everyone else has. people like to go on about things like coal use in industry and power generation as well as vehicles for producing the pollution. but one IMPORTANT factor is always left out. in Asia (not so sure about places like Mexico as well as the rest of South America, but being a "poor" nations i suspect it would be true as well), there is a much higher contributing factor involved with this pollution. that factor is the fact that coal (normally charcoal made from wood and other things like coconuts, which of course adds yet more pollution as it is made), is used by most people for things such as cooking, heat, and even light. it might not seem to people from "rich" nations to be a big deal, since we tend to do things like occasionally BBQ on charcoal, so it doesn't seem like it would be any more than a minor factor in pollution. but consider it this way, there are literally MILLIONS of "BBQ's" being used in just the Philippines, MILLIONS more in China etc, all being used at least 3 times a day for cooking, plus those that are going all day and all night as both a source of heat and light, not to mention places like restaurants and "food carts" that are constantly cooking on it all day and a fair hunk of the night as well. even with the cooking we are not talking about 20 minutes to BBQ steaks or burgers, but any and all food these people cook, just think how long different foods take to cook, on a stove or in an oven, then realize that these people use coal for all of that cooking/baking etc. also realize that something like native beef for example is often boiled for hours on end (of course all that time burning coal), because it it is so tough to soften it up for eating.

now living in Manila, i know that there is a big smog issue here. yet unless i am right on a road, i don't smell the diesel fumes. what i smell is charcoal fires, the smell is everywhere in and around the city, especially in the slum areas. you can literally see all this smoke constantly drifting up, a heck of a lot more than can be seen coming from vehicles or even factories. everything turns black or grey unless constantly cleaned, even inside home (not being a cold climate even when shut, windows do not "seal" so air is always moving in), fans, walls floors, windows etc are cleaned weekly from the accumulation of the soot that covers everything. my dogs need constant bathing to remove the black soot from their fur. any older building looks dirty and dingy as they get covered in the soot. i bet that if it snowed here, the snow would be black. even people pick up this soot, every time i was my hands (even when all i have been doing is typing on my computer, or out shopping), there is an obvious blackness coming off of them, from the soot. people who don't even smoke cough up black flem from it. i know i do, and it clears up in a week or two when i am back home. i also understand that there are a lot of people suffering from lung problems due to it. this even is the same out in the provinces where there are no factories or much traffic, yet where charcoal is used by almost everybody, with the addition of constant burning of farming waste on top of the coal use. and for those that do not "cook on coal", what do they use for cooking? most other people use LPG stoves and ovens, which adds yet more pollutants to the atmosphere.

in the end, it is not "industrial pollution" and vehicles that are the main cause of pollution in the air, but all of these coal fires used everyday by a huge chunk of the populations. cities are especially polluting due to the population density, which is really why the bigger the city the worse the smog problem. sure factories and vehicles add their own into it, but they are not the main cause.

a reply to: luxordelphi

Your first paragraph

What?

I read that jets prefer the stratosphere for cruise because it is weather and turbulence free.

Actually, jets do encounter weather and turbulence because they fly mostly in the tropopause. Ever been on a jet? But as I said, the indications are that jet exhaust is in all likelihood O3 neutral whether or not they are above the tropopause. Some components enhance O3 production and others degrade O3.

So deforestation and such (the Amazon) could have done this? Very interesting and horrible at the same time.

No. The Amazon is very far to the east of the "hole." Deforestation is definitely not a good thing but the "hole" is the result of thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean. It's probably been there since forever.
Regarding the climate change aspect of water vapor in the stratosphere, I don't see what it has to do with the topic or why you seem to relate this discovery to jet transport. Water vapor does not react with hydroxl (in fact, hydroxl is a product of the breakdown of water vapor) so the existence of the "hole" doesn't really affect the vertical transport of water vapor. That's more a matter of pressure and density.

If OH has a lifetime of less than a second and if OH decreases with altitude and latitude anyway and since transport is from the equator to the poles, what does this hole mean for mid-latitudes?

I can't say for certain but probably not much. Hydroxl is highly reactive with some compounds and acts as a "cleanser" by reacting with them, turning them into more innocuous compounds. The hydroxl "hole" allows things like CFCs and NO2 (and sulfates) to pass through the stratosphere in the tropical west Pacific without being neutralized. When these compounds descend (as part of stratospheric circulation) at high latitudes they enhance the degradation of O3 in polar regions. Except for extremely high altitudes, mid-latitudes are probably bypassed.

a reply to: luxordelphi

So now I have a question....

Is this the reason you put this in geoengineering/ chemtrails forum instead of say the Fragile Earth forum.

Lastly, geo-engineers have proposed sulfur dioxide injections by projectiles, aircraft and balloons in order to mimic volcanoes and cool the planet. Was this actually done instead of just proposed the way we were all told? And did that create this hole? Because we really don't know squat about the atmosphere? - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Because nothing in your OP actually has to do with geoengineering or in fact chemtrails.

Also do you think that maybe this may be a problem for the atmosphere before planes and their exhaust?



or maybe even this...

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

Yes, the extra sulfur is one of the reasons I put this in this forum. Additionally, I put it here because this new hole is being called, by the media, an 'OH shield', an 'elevator', etc. when it is really another ozone hole. That's what's missing from it - ozone. So I'm curious about the media spin and I'm curious about why not just call an ozone hole an ozone hole and I'm curious about what the basis is for assuming that this is in any way natural and has always been there. I'd like to find a slam dunk way to tie this to secret geo-engineering but need more data and that's why I wanted to discuss with some of the most knowledgeable people on atmosphere on the internet.

As far as your pix on ground level smog, as Phage pointed out, we're in the ocean here on this one.

I'm also still trying to figure out where the southeast Asia little volcanoes are. Also still trying to figure out how smog got to the hole from southeast Asia. (I'm convinced by several posts in this thread that there is plenty of ground level pollution in southeast Asia - far more than I had imagined.)

I found some interesting things to add on this, and thanks for a very thought provoking thread, OP.

This is what you might call the 'text book definition... (grin)

The pilot says, "We are now at our cruising altitude of 30,000 feet." Why do planes fly so high?

That altitude gets them out of the troposphere and into the stratosphere. Although the arc that they must travel is greater the further from the surface they get, fuel costs are lower because there is less friction due to the lower air density. Also, there is little air turbulence, which makes the passengers happier.

Stratosphere

There is little mixing between the stratosphere, the layer above the troposphere, and the troposphere below it. The two layers are quite separate. Sometimes ash and gas from a large volcanic eruption may burst into the stratosphere. Once in the stratosphere, it remains suspended there for many years because there is so little mixing between the two layers.

Source

I found something a lot more interesting at a slightly higher level of material though...

The bottom of the stratosphere is around 10 km (6.2 miles or about 33,000 feet) above the ground at middle latitudes. The top of the stratosphere occurs at an altitude of 50 km (31 miles). The height of the bottom of the stratosphere varies with latitude and with the seasons. The lower boundary of the stratosphere can be as high as 20 km (12 miles or 65,000 feet) near the equator and as low as 7 km (4 miles or 23,000 feet) at the poles in winter. The lower boundary of the stratosphere is called the tropopause; the upper boundary is called the stratopause.

Source: National Center for Atmospheric Research

I also found data on the average altitude for the transatlantic flights. It's one example, but again, a solid source.

The altitude for a typical transatlantic flight is 35,000 to 39,000 feet above sea level. Inside the cabin, the pressurized altitude is equivalent to 5,400 to 7,000 feet above sea level. (Denver, Colorado, U.S.A., is 5,280 feet above sea level, the center of La Paz, Bolivia, is 11,811 feet, and St. Moritz, Switzerland is 5,978 feet.)

Source: Boeing

I do wish they'd devote more time to studying what simple jet fuel exhaust does in the upper levels, by the sheer scale it occurs now. It doesn't necessarily require any nefarious plot at all for the mere by-product of burning the fuel to be doing potential damage. Not much in small numbers..but as some point out in other context, it's legion of flights per day in the modern world. Simple pollution takes all forms with all sorts of impacts, to be sure.

a reply to: luxordelphi

That's what's missing from it - ozone. So I'm curious about the media spin and I'm curious about why not just call an ozone hole an ozone hole and I'm curious about what the basis is for assuming that this is in any way natural and has always been there.

It could have something to do with the fact that this "hole" has an entire different effect (and cause) than the polar ozone holes and calling it an ozone hole would lead to confusion about the two. The reason that OH is missing in this region is because it forms in the troposphere by chemical reactions with ozone. The effect of the OH "hole", as I said, is a reduced "cleaning" effect.

It's reasonable to think this situation has always occurred because of the processes which cause it.

Ozone, in turn, forms in the lower atmosphere only if there are sufficient nitrogen oxides there. Large amounts of nitrogen oxide compounds are produced in particular by intensive lightning over land. However, the air masses in the tropical West Pacific were not exposed to any continental tropical storms for a very long time during their transport across the giant ocean. And the lightning activity in storms over the ocean is relatively small. At the same time the lifetime of atmospheric ozone is short due to the exceptionally warm and moist conditions in the tropical West Pacific.

www.awi.de...

originally posted by: Wrabbit2000

I do wish they'd devote more time to studying what simple jet fuel exhaust does in the upper levels, by the sheer scale it occurs now. It doesn't necessarily require any nefarious plot at all for the mere by-product of burning the fuel to be doing potential damage. Not much in small numbers..but as some point out in other context, it's legion of flights per day in the modern world. Simple pollution takes all forms with all sorts of impacts, to be sure.

Absolutely - which is why the IPCC report has a report just on the effects of high altitude aviation emissions.

a reply to: Aloysius the Gaul

Indeed... You might even see my signature has a link to a rather lengthy analysis of an IPCC report. They are among the organizations I've come to follow releases from quite closely.

There is a lot going on and it's a big world with diversity beyond what the computers can accurately measure. Particularly when the best modeling is still GIGO for data largely originating in the last few decades for detailed stuff, and the last few centuries for large cross sections of any true value on direct observation.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. - Hamlet (1.5.167-8)

Indeed, there are. There certainly are.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Yes and a couple of links to add to those you already put up on jet emissions in the stratosphere. First one from the IPCC, which I think is very conservative because they had the aviation guys looking over their shoulders as they typed.

ipcc Aviation and the Global Atmosphere...2.1.1.1. Aircraft Emissions

Most present-day jet aircraft cruise in an altitude range (9-13 km) that contains portions of the UT and LS...Determination of the partitioning of exhaust into the two atmospheric regions is complicated by the highly variable and latitudinally dependent character of the tropopause (i.e., the transition between the stratosphere and troposphere). Comparisons of aircraft cruise altitudes with mean tropopause heights has led to estimates for stratospheric release of 20-40% of total emissions (Hoinka et al., 1993; Baughcum, 1996; Schumann, 1997; Gettleman and Baughcum, 1999).

And the second one, retro, back to the 1990's:

Saving ozone with a no-go zone: Jumbo jets are spending more time in the stratosphere than previously realised, and their emissions are damaging the ozone layer. Should flights in the stratosphere be banned?

The world's busiest aircraft flight corridor between North America and Europe borders one of the most threatened sectors of the ozone layer, over the North Atlantic, which thins by up to 25 per cent in late winter. Every day, up to 500 civil aircraft in the corridor burst out of the troposphere and up into the stratosphere, with its fragile ozone layer. About 15 per cent of emissions from all civil flights come from these aircraft, and at least half their emissions issue straight into the stratosphere.

Thank you also for pointing out the different elevations of these places - had completely ignored that - too many plates in the air when it comes to our atmosphere. Lots to take into account!

a reply to: Phage

It could have something to do with the fact that this "hole" has an entire different effect (and cause) than the polar ozone holes and calling it an ozone hole would lead to confusion about the two. The reason that OH is missing in this region is because it forms in the troposphere by chemical reactions with ozone. The effect of the OH "hole", as I said, is a reduced "cleaning" effect.

There's nothing neutral about jet emissions into the stratosphere. Because it's such a pristine area, anything you put there is going to start a cascade. Water vapor alone, like in the previous link I put up, is getting transported there by enormous amounts compared to 'natural cycles.'

Regarding the climate change aspect of water vapor in the stratosphere, I don't see what it has to do with the topic or why you seem to relate this discovery to jet transport.

Because the media seem to want to relate this discovery to the transport of sulfur and then hem and haw over how it was good; now maybe not so good; and maybe we'll just wait and see. And because I still remember the media stories from a couple of years ago on how sulfur fuel additives might be the answer to everything. Or not.

I read something recently on an ozone hole event in the Arctic and how this affected mid-latitudes by sending ozone sparse air over those regions. Can't find that right now but I have also read that transport of air goes from the equator upwards toward each pole. That was in a context describing how, because of specialized weather in the tropics, there was a problem with geo-engineering cirrus (allegedly a theoretical exercise!). Because it was transported away. Toward mid-latitudes on its' journey to the poles.

And what is the nature of this newly discovered hole? This is an ozone hole. An ozone-free zone.

Hole over tropical West Pacific reinforcing ozone depletion in polar regions

Tried and tested a thousand times over, the ozone probes he sent up into the tropical sky with a research balloon every 400 kilometres reported – nothing. Or to be more accurate: almost nothing. The ozone concentrations in his measurements remained nearly constantly below the detection limit of approximately 10 ppbv in the entire vertical range from the surface of the Earth to an altitude of around 15 kilometres. Normally ozone concentrations in this part of the atmosphere are three to ten times higher.

It could have something to do with the fact that this "hole" has an entire different effect (and cause) than the polar ozone holes and calling it an ozone hole would lead to confusion about the two. The reason that OH is missing in this region is because it forms in the troposphere by chemical reactions with ozone. The effect of the OH "hole", as I said, is a reduced "cleaning" effect.

So you have said the same thing - no OH because of no 03. I think that one of the reasons they haven't called it an ozone hole could be because technically, in the tropics, it's not high enough to reach the stratosphere. Still, media is tying it to the stratosphere. So possibly there is some change in altitude for some atmospheric layers here because of climate change/global warming.

I am not familiar enough with ozone production in the troposphere to add to your statement on that although there is always back and forth on how too much here is also bad and possibly someone may have thought to do something about that and this is the result?

And as far as transport - going to have to look up how the winds blow either side of the equator. Thank you for your information. Particularly the lightning stuff!

a reply to: Fylgje

I've always clung to that theory as to waht initiated to hole in the ozone layer. Theres a few other scientists that say the same ..
NZHerald

a reply to: luxordelphi

There's nothing neutral about jet emissions into the stratosphere.

Ozone neutral. More or less.

Water vapor alone, like in the previous link I put up, is getting transported there by enormous amounts compared to 'natural cycles.'

Is it? Doesn't seem to be affecting the concentration of stratospheric water vapor much.
www.sciencemag.org...


Still not clear on what jet transport has to do with the OH hole in the tropical west Pacific though.

originally posted by: Alchemst7
a reply to: Fylgje

I've always clung to that theory as to waht initiated to hole in the ozone layer. Theres a few other scientists that say the same ..
NZHerald

From your link:

After some research he discovered the US tested 331 bombs in the atmosphere, six above the US and the rest above the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean with some in the South Atlantic.

Looks like this current 'new' hole is sitting right there near the Marshall Islands so that's probably the best theory yet.

a reply to: luxordelphi

The quote is in error. The US conducted 216 atmospheric, underwater and space tests, 67 were conducted in the Marshall Islands. The last was in 1958. www.nuclearclaimstribunal.com...

Looks like this current 'new' hole is sitting right there near the Marshall Islands so that's probably the best theory yet.

Sure. Why listen to the atmospheric scientists who actually discovered it and understand atmospheric chemistry, right?

Can you provide the mechanism whereby atmospheric nuclear testing would create a dearth of hydroxl which would persist for 55 years?

a reply to: Phage

There were a few spots in the stratosphere that were tested a few times and some, like Boulder, that had a little bit more intensity. Recently, with more concentrated testing, lasting dry areas have been found in the stratosphere that, because nothing moves around there much, remain as they are. Also there is a proposed cyclical thing that goes along with that paper.

Water vapor lifetimes in the stratosphere are also contentious. In the troposphere, it lasts some give or take 10 days. In the stratosphere there is no consensus: several months, several decades, millenia.

Still not clear on what jet transport has to do with the OH hole in the tropical west Pacific though.

That's because somehow you have come up with the notion that jet emissions are good for the environment or, at the very least, neutral. And because you fail to see the difference between natural circulation and chemistry and artificial injection at altitudes that only explosive volcanoes and meteors previously reached.

Can you provide the mechanism whereby atmospheric nuclear testing would create a dearth of hydroxl which would persist for 55 years?

OH? How about a dearth of ozone? That can be shown. But researchers have not yet provided any mechanism by which this hole would naturally form and always have been there. When the ozone holes were discovered not so very long ago they were not claimed as natural and, in fact, set off a whole long list of changes we all needed to make in our behavior in order to get them to heal.

a reply to: luxordelphi

Water vapor lifetimes in the stratosphere are also contentious. In the troposphere, it lasts some give or take 10 days. In the stratosphere there is no consensus: several months, several decades, millenia.

What do you mean "it lasts" ten days? What happens to it? If jet transport is adding humungous amounts of water vapor to the atmosphere, why are not water vapor levels rising?

That's because somehow you have come up with the notion that jet emissions are good for the environment or, at the very least, neutral.

I didn't say jet emissions are good for the environment. I said that as far as ozone goes, jet emissions are neutral.

OH? How about a dearth of ozone? That can be shown.

Ok. Please show how nuclear testing 55 years ago can cause of dearth of ozone today.

But researchers have not yet provided any mechanism by which this hole would naturally form and always have been there.

On the contrary. The mechanism is quite well explained.

When the ozone holes were discovered not so very long ago they were not claimed as natural and, in fact, set off a whole long list of changes we all needed to make in our behavior in order to get them to heal.

The Antarctic ozone "hole" was first discovered in the 1970's. In 1985 it was discovered that the "hole" was increasing. The chemistry of natural (seasonal) ozone depletion was understood as was the chemistry which human activity caused.

The chemistry of the hydroxl hole in the tropical western pacific is also understood. The root cause is thousands of miles of ocean which, in effect, scrubs the atmosphere.

a reply to: Phage

What do you mean "it lasts" ten days? What happens to it? If jet transport is adding humungous amounts of water vapor to the atmosphere, why are not water vapor levels rising?

Water vapor levels in the stratosphere are rising.

The increase in stratospheric water vapor from balloonborne, frostpoint hygrometer measurements at Washington, D.C., and Boulder, Colorado

Stratospheric water vapor concentrations measured at two midlatitude locations in the northern hemisphere show water vapor amounts have increased at a rate of 1–1.5% yr-1 (0.05–0.07 ppmv yr-1) for the past 35 years. At Washington, D.C., measurements were made from 1964–1976, and at Boulder, Colorado, observations began in 1980 and continue to the present. While these two data sets do not comprise a single time series, they individually show increases over their respective measurement periods. At Boulder the trends do not show strong seasonal differences; significant increases are found throughout the year in the altitude range 16–28 km. In winter these trends are significant down to about 13 km.

These tests, however, were sporadic and incidental and when not sporadic, localized. While they take into consideration seasonal variations, they do not consider 'dry slots' which they would be subject to in a localized test. (More on this further down.)

In the atmosphere there is this thing called a residence time. Residence times in the troposphere are generally figured with confidence; residence times in the stratosphere not so much.

residence time definition noun

1. Also called residence. Chemistry . the length of time a substance remains in the adsorbed, suspended, or dissolved state.
2. Physics. the length of time radioactive material, as gas or particles, remains in the atmosphere after detonation of a nuclear device.

The stratosphere doesn't experience weather - it is a very static area. Things there don't move around much so there are lasting pockets of things. (Tried to find a picture of this which I saw the other day but can't find now.) So a measurement could be continually taken in one of these 'dry slots' which would give an inaccurate result.

Large Wildfire Growth influenced by Tropospheric and Stratospheric Dry Slots in the United States

It is well documented in the available literature that surfacing lower-stratospheric and mid- to upper-tropospheric weather are responsible for dry air intrusions and descending dry air. Most times, these dry intrusions manifest themselves as clearly visible dark bands in the satellite water vapor imagery, referred to as dry slots. These dry slots usually result in abrupt surface drying and strong, gusty winds often radically influencing wildland fire behavior and hence fire growth.

Cloud seeding is also in the mix as far as Colorado - west of the Rockies/east of the Rockies - goes. I don't know how that would influence dry slots in the stratosphere but just stating it as something else that is going on there.

a reply to: luxordelphi

Water vapor levels in the stratosphere are rising.

They are a bit higher than they were in 1980 but they are lower than they were in 2000 and have been steadily so. That's what the chart I posted shows, the chart which also uses that same data from Boulder.

You said the residence time of water vapor in the stratosphere is "several months, several decades, millenia." If that is the case, if jets are adding humungous amounts of water vapor, why haven't water vapor levels risen in the past decade? Jets don't seem to be having much of an effect, do they?

The stratosphere doesn't experience weather - it is a very static area. Things there don't move around much so there are lasting pockets of things.

Then why, with all those jets flying over Colorado, doesn't water vapor just stay there and accumulate? Since it lasts "several months, several decades, millenia" and the stratosphere is "static?"
flightaware.com...

So a measurement could be continually taken in one of these 'dry slots' which would give an inaccurate result.

Those "dry slots" are transient, not permanent. They move. Take a look at the water vapor imagery your quote mentions.
www.goes.noaa.gov...

And what does air traffic have to do with the hydroxl hole in the tropical west Pacific anyway?

a reply to: Phage

(I wasn't finished replying to your other post yet - you are too fast for me!)

I didn't say jet emissions are good for the environment. I said that as far as ozone goes, jet emissions are neutral.

Jet emissions of water vapor and carbon dioxide into the stratosphere are not neutral by any stretch. As far as NOx (nitrogen oxides) it's a du jour argument on what the chemistry is. Some media handouts say neutral, that much is so.

Water vapor in the upper atmosphere amplifies global warming, says new study

“The stratospheric water vapor feedback effect could be even larger than the 5-10% we found in our study,” said Davis. “Our analysis suggests that the pathways for water vapor to reach the stratosphere are not completely understood, so we view our numbers as a minimum estimate of the effect of this feedback.” - See more at: cires.colorado.edu...

Physics and Dynamics of Clouds and Precipitation/page 427...

In addition to being a possible climatic forcing, water vapor in the stratosphere can also play a role in regulating the ozone concentration, because H2O is the source material for making odd hydrogen species HOx9 which is known to cause ozone depletion in the stratosphere via some catalytic cycles.

Always funny, to me, how water vapor getting into the stratosphere continues to remain such a mystery.

Anyway, the whole water vapor/carbon dioxide thing is the Venus Road. If we all want to have a climate like Venus, we just need to continue what we're doing until a good portion of surface water evaporates and drought prevails and we'll get the results of what we created.

The Ozone Problem is Back - Worse Than Ever

While water in the stratosphere might seem innocuous, the finding made Anderson “profoundly worried,” he recalls. From the decades he had spent studying the depletion of the earth’s ozone layer—the thin gauze of molecules in the stratosphere that blocks most incoming ultraviolet radiation—Anderson knew that water could, through a series of chemical reactions, destroy ozone.

Anderson persisted, and by early 2012 he had demonstrated the connection. Scrutinizing data from the high-altitude flights, he showed that summer thunderstorms were indeed injecting water molecules into the stratosphere. There, sulfate aerosols (from industrial pollutants as well as volcanoes) attract the water molecules like a sponge and, plumped up, provide a bed for chemical reactions that destroy ozone.

And while the person quoted in that article is looking for sulfates from ground level pollution to ascend to stratospheric heights, we only need to look at jet emissions which supply the entire cocktail and deliver it to the stratosphere.

a reply to: luxordelphi

Jet emissions of water vapor and carbon dioxide into the stratosphere are not neutral by any stretch.

Why do you keep talking about something I didn't say. I said that jet emissions contain some compounds which enhance O3 production and some that deplete O3. I said that the net effect is neutral in regard to O3. I said it in direct response to your comment:

Since, according to these articles, this filter layer is sooo important for ozone in the stratosphere, why oh why are jet emissions DIRECTLY into the stratosphere never given their proper place?

What do jets have to do with the hydroxl hole over the tropical west Pacific?