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Hunga Tonga and Ozone

26 October 2023
Climate change, Physics

At https://phys.org/news/2023-10-hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai-eruption-depleted-ozone.html … another consequence of the submarine Hunga Tonga Ha’apai eruption in the Pacific has popped up. It shrank part of the ozone layer. The eruption also sent a huge amount of ocean water into the upper atmosphere – and salt water reacting with other chemicals resulted in a depletion of the ozone layer. Baloons with sensors were sent into the upper atmosphere from nearby Reunion Island, just 5 days after the volcano blew. However, the depletion amounted to around 5 per cent of the ozone, it found. Not a large amount. This is probably why it wasn’t mentioned to the public earlier. Are they getting reading for another ozone hole in the offing?

Meanwhile, at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-02099-2 … we learn that an intense equatorial jet has been observed on Jupiter. East to west zonal jets on Jupiter that alternate as a function of altitude as tracked by cloud motions at tropospheric levels. Above and below the tropopause the atmosphere, even on Jupiter’s equator, is covered by hazes in higher detail than ever before, a reference to the James Webb Space Telescope. It also reveals the presence of an intense equatorial jet that moves faster than the zonal winds at cloud level. It seems to be confined to the equator and is located below stratospheric thermal oscillations.

At https://phys.org/news/2023-05-theory-helium-leaking-earth-core.html … Helium-3 is leaking from earth’s core it is theorised. The headline trumpets it as a fact. Perhaps it is. The new theory has been created in order to explain how it might happen – brought about by the discovery of Helium-3 in volcanic rock formations on the ocean floor. As Helium-3 is rare at the surface of the earth its presence has to be explained somehow – and a leak from the core might be appropriate.

At https://phys.org/newws/2023-10-evidence-earth-core-leaking-baffin.html … fast forward five months and the theory seems to be picking up a life of its own. Further evidence of earth’s core leaking has been found on Baffin Island. Trace elements of Helium 3 have been found in a lava flow.

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