Since there are not many factories or anything else to pour CFCs into the air over Antarctica, why is the whole so freaking huge there?!? I just heard that the hole has reached a polulated city for the first time ever. Damn, I forgot which one, but it was some South American city I think.
Anyway, since penquins are way too smart to use products that spew CFCs into the air, why is the hole biggest over that country? Shouldn’t it be biggest over the U.S.?
Searching the board, the best I could find was that there are fewer ozone molecules per volume over Antarctica, so the layer thins out there more. Still, I think it should be more evident over an industrialized, environmentally apathetic country like the US. It should make since that the most polluting country should have the biggest hole! Right? I know we make a lot of ozone in our pollution too, but doesn’t that mostly stay around as smog and not travel high enough to affect the ozone levels.
The best theory I can come up with is that lightening produces ozone, and since there is no lightening in Antarctica, there is nothing there to replenish the supply.
Anyone know anything about this? From what I have seen, Ozone threads dies a quick death. But since ALL my threads die a quick death, I figured I had nothing to lose!
I beleive that it’s because the ozone layer is thinner there in the first place, so in the event of a global thinning, a hole would show up first there.
I thing a major factor here is that the CFCs don’t just float straight up from where they’re produced. They mix into the air, and take quite a while to reach the upper atmosphere where they can play around with ozone.
If I remember my environmental studies courses correctly, it takes several years (~15 or so) for the stuff to all get up there. What I remember seeing is that the hole will likely peak in 10 years or so, and there’s nothing we can do about it. (Correspondingly, skin cancer rates will peak a few years later). We aren’t been producing nearly as much ozone-layer-damaging chemicals as we used to, but we still feel the effects of those before us.
PJ is right about the time delay. There are lots of different numbers floating around, and all are SWAGs, but IIRC we have at least 10 years before it starts getting better. The CFC molecules are very stable, and have time to diffuse throughout the entire ozone layer. Therefore the problem shows up the most in the area where the ozone is the thinest. I don’t think it has much to do with lightning.
BTW - Smog city has tons of ground level ozone, a major precurser to smog. Ozone protects from UV just as well at ground level as it does at high altitudes. LA is sort of safe, although we have been cutting back lately, and some 'burg in Texas just beat us in days over x ppm, so we probably ought to start burning stuff again. Maybe some riots near the refineries would keep the melanoma at bay.
I do mostly ammonia refrigeration, so don’t blame me! (besides, people using is as a solvent released more than refrigeration people ever did.)