[H/T to Leslie] A Canadian scientist says the largest known hole in the ozone will
occur over the South Pole in the next week. If that happens, it will
help us understand global warming.
Dr. Qing-Bin Lu, of Canada’s University of Waterloo, says NASA
satellites and laboratory measurements show cosmic rays are the real
cause of the seasonal hole in the earth’s ozone layer over the
Antarctic. Cosmic rays are tiny, invisible, high-energy particles from
exploding stars which constantly strike the earth—and people. Cosmic
rays probably cause some of our cancers, by altering the DNA inside our
bodies.
However, if Dr. Qing-Bin Lu and others are correct, they also are
connected to climate change. The number of cosmic rays hitting the
earth varies sharply based on the activity level of the sun and the
size of the magnetic wind it projects out into space. A weak sun means
a weak magnetic wind and more cosmic rays striking earth. Britain’s BBC
recently reported that the solar wind is now blowing at the weakest
rate in more than 50 years, and is also 13 percent cooler than it was
15 years ago.
The ozone layer is important because it absorbs most of the sun’s
high-frequency ultraviolet light, protecting us from skin cancers and
cataracts. In the 1980s, eco-activists told us the hole in the
Antarctic ozone had been caused by man-made chemicals released from the
chlorofluorocarbons once used in our refrigerators and air
conditioners.
Fear of losing the ozone layer’s health protection led to the
Montreal Protocol, which has banned CFCs since 1989. But the ban failed
to change behavior of the ozone layer over the Antarctic.
Dr. Lu says that NASA satellites demonstrate that cosmic rays cause
drastic reactions in chlorine compounds inside clouds over the Polar
Regions. The satellite data now cover two full 11-year solar cycles,
from 1980–2007.
“This finding, combined with laboratory measurements, provides
strong evidence of the role of cosmic-ray-driven reactions in causing
the ozone hole, and resolves the mystery of why a large discrepancy
between the sunlight-related photochemical model and the observed ozone
depletion exists,” says Lu.
Cosmic rays are also connected to climate change. In 1998, Henrik
Svensmark of the Danish Space Research Institute filled a reaction
chamber with the earth’s mix of atmospheric gases, and turned on a UV
light to mimic the sun. He was amazed as the cosmic rays coming through
the building’s walls quickly filled the chamber with huge numbers of
microscopic, electrically charged droplets of water and sulfuric
acid—the “cloud seeds” that help create low, wet, cooling clouds in the
earth’s atmosphere. Since such clouds often cover 30 percent of the
earth’s surface, they can play a crucial role in the planet’s warming
or cooling.
Currently, the World Meteorological Organization uses the
photochemical model to predict that the Antarctic springtime ozone hole
will increase by another 5–10 percent by 2020. In sharp contrast, Dr.
LU says the severest ozone loss will occur over the South Pole this
month—with another large ozone-triggered hole occurring around 2019.
If the South Pole gets an ozone-hole maximum in the coming weeks,
it will strengthen the case for cosmic rays, and endorse a Modern
Warming driven by solar variations rather than human-emitted CO2. The
solar model is already endorsed by oxygen isotopes in ice cores from
both Greenland and the Antarctic, by microfossils in the sediments of
nine oceans and hundreds of lakes worldwide, and by cave stalagmites
from every continent plus New Zealand.
The case for a solar-driven climate is also strengthened by a drop in
global temperatures over the past 18 months: The temperature decline
had been forecast by the sunspot index since 2000, but was not
predicted by the global climate models.
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