Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!spool.mu.edu!news.nd.edu!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!mace.cc.purdue.edu!dil
From: dil@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Perry G Ramsey)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Ozone and the shuttle
Summary: A few facts to cloud the discussion
Message-ID: <7280@mace.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 19 Apr 91 16:22:53 GMT
References: <4649@orbit.cts.com>
Organization: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Lines: 68

In article <4649@orbit.cts.com>, rambler@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Dan Meyer) writes:
> 
> The Depletion of the ozone layer is documented? *where*?
Lotsa places.  The observations by the British Antarctic Survey are a
good start, as are SAGE II satellite obs.  You might look into
"Scientific Assessment of Stratosperic Ozone: 1989", published by the
World Meteorological Association (Global Ozone Research and Monitoring
Project - Report No. 20), produced by NASA, UK Department of the
Environment, NOAA, United Nations Environment Program, and the WMO.

> 150 years of weather
> data do not provide enough data to support any meteorlogical norms,

Essentially true, but being unable to prove that you have a problem is
not the same as proving that you don't have a problem.

> and the
> media is crying " global warming, global warming!!!" and " the ozone is going,
> the ozone is going!! ". How can you support your claim that your baseline is
> not artificially way too high, and what is taking place is perfectly normal. 

On the global warming issue, very few reputable scientists would claim
that CO2 induced climate change is a certainty.  Virtually all would,
however, contend that the physical mechanisms are plausible, and that
the evidence supports the theory.

As far as the ozone going, it is certain that it is going over the
Antarctic in the Spring.  Everywhere else, well, that's not so
certain, but again, the physical mechanisms are plausible, and the
data supports the theory.

On an almost comical (if it weren't so dangerous) side note, we may be
generating enough ozone at the surface (where it is a very toxic
pollutant) to counteract the loss of stratospheric ozone.  I'm not
sure that's the right approach.

> 
> Almost all of the population has no idea how massive the ozone layer (and
> other parts of the atmosphere) is. Whatever the amount of freons that we are
> emmitting into the is, it seems to me that it amounts to less than a drop in
> the proverbial bucket. 

Freons in themselves are a very small constituent, of the atmosphere,
 but they represent
a great perturbation in the stratospheric chlorine budget.  Normally,
it is very difficult to get free chlorine into the stratosphere,
because it is scavenged by a wide variety of tropospheric processes.
CFC's, OTOH, diffuse through the tropopause unchanged.  They don't
break down in the troposphere because there is very little UV. Once they
reach the stratosphere, they break down by photolysis, releasing free
chlorine, which CATALYZES the destruction of odd oxygen.  Hence, each
chlorine destroys thousands of ozone molecules before it gets lost.
The Shuttle, and all solid rocket boosted launch vehicles, also
deposit a lot of chlorine directly into the stratosphere, hence the
problem.  Calculations of the quantity of chlorine indicate that the
Shuttle at its current (dismal) launch rate does not represent a major
threat. 
> 
> I stand by my original statement. 

Then you're standing in a very dangerous place.


-- 
Perry G. Ramsey         Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
dil@mace.cc.purdue.edu  Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN USA
perryr@purccvm
Sometimes history repeats itself; sometimes it doesn't.  So get good odds.