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old hat

30 May 2015
Climate change

At http://phys.org/print352015312.html … it was the failure of the New Orleans levee system that caused the city to flood after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The flood walls along the city's principle drainage canals were inadequate – and a combination of factors was involved (not least the local political in play). It's a bit old hat but an in depth study into the flooding has just been completed – and has apportioned a great deal of blame on the US Army Corps of Engineers. Failure to spend enough money on infrastructure has been levelled at the local politicians – and one can see they were cheap skates as the flood walls were less than half the height required. However, in the last instance, the engineers were responsible for coming up with an inadequate design. Instead of heights of between 30 and 46 feet the flood defences were just 17 feet – a trajedy just waiting to happen.

These findings demolish the old hat claim that climate change and global warming were responsible. That was probably all about the CAGW shrieking set jumping on somebody elses misfortune to make a false accusation – just because it happened and it was a convenient tag to add to the doomsaying message. And they did – very loudly.

At http://phys.org/print350818229.html … researchers in Houston in Texas are blaming climate change for reduced ozone levels. Apparently, a combination of a stiff sea breeze and warmer soil temperatures conspired to bring about a drop in ozone along the Gulf coast (and the lead author is said to be a professor of atmospheric chemistry).

At http://phys.org/print351847982.html … we are told the Montreal Protocol (where politicians gathered and in their wisdom banned CFCs) has left the ozone layer in much better shape. In other words, the hole has not increased in size (on average) during the intervening years. This is a peculiar claim as at the time it was said it would take around 50 years before the ban worked. It is of course another case of environmentalists claiming a false victory – as the ozone hole comes and goes and probably always has. Not only that, the ozone hole is a heat vent. If they really believed global warming was a reality they would encourage the use of CFCs as by the same logic the hole would get bigger and more heat (from hypothetical global warming) would be able to escape into space. In effect the holes at the Poles are regions where excess heat in the system is able to dissipate – and warm air and ocean currents travel from the tropics towards the Poles in order to do just that – one of the reasons why summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean can on occasion is reduced and gives rise to repeated hopes, every 50 or 60 years, of the formation of a new sea route across the top of the world (between N America and northern Siberia). These dreams have been going on, periodically, since Captain Cook investigated the idea. What you really need is an eskimo kayak – they have been doing it for thousands of years. The kayak is useful as you can manhandle it across the ice floes – and paddle in the clear water.

Exactly the same press release is published in full at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/26/claim-severe-ozone-depletion-avoided/ … and the title encapsulates it perfectly – the CAGW crowd are claiming they have averted an ozone depletion by banning a chemical compound used by industry, simply because the ozone hole has failed to live up to the doomsaying prophecy. They would like to make the same claim about co2 – but China and India and their hundreds of on stream coal fired power stations present a barrier against such hypocrisy.

In the comments there are a number of explanations provided for the ozone hole – so you can take your pick on which one you might prefer. This is all a bit old hat as the solar wind is known to affect ozone levels in the atmosphere of the Earth, swishing it about and dispersing much of the ozone from the Poles. In effect, there is not a hole, as such, but a reduced amount of ozone over the Poles, and the ozone has a tendency to drift in and out of those regions – depending on how much energy is transferred from the Sun into the Earth's system at any given time. See also http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Ozone/

At 10.09 somebodys says the ozone hole was observed in the late 1950s – and talked about in the 1920s. Was it really as frightening as the environmentalists claimed in the 1990s? GMB Dobson was on about the ozone hole long before the doomsayers were born. Climate Reason says we don't know if the ozone hole existed prior to the 1950s because we didn't have the equipment, or the inclination, to measure it. He posed that same question to people at Cambridge University and the Max Planck Institute and they said it was unlikely according to their modelling.

Mike at 2.36am says it is volcanoes that cause reductions in ozone and there has not been a big volcano since 1996 – about the time the doomsaying was in full flow. He suggests visiting http://judithcurry.com/2015/02/06/on-determination-of-tropical-feedback/

Ozone is formed by the action of UV, high energy, and EM radiation. NASA, somewhere, says ozone is created by sunlight. A wag then claims the ozone hole exists where the Sun doesn't shine (the Poles are in darkness for six months of the year). Another comment, at 9.11am, says Antarctic ozone is affected by Bromine and Chlorine compounds from the ocean (sea water evaporated into the atmosphere). He says the ozone hole is a heat vent into space where excess heat in the atmosphere and oceans is whished up into space and out of Earth's system.

See also www.breadandbutterscience.com/OzoneHole.pdf

 

 

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