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It
must have pained the BBC to publish this, because their headline - "Arctic
ozone levels in never-before-seen plunge" - carefully avoids the word
"cold." Then, in an apparent attempt to switch the focus onto humans, Black reminds us that ozone "is destroyed by reactions with industrial chemicals." He also speaks of the Montreal Protocol, which was meant to control the amount of (supposed) ozone-depleting gases that we nasty humans pump into the atmosphere.
"So
it's really a combination of the gases still there and low temperatures and
then sunshine, and then you get ozone loss," says Black, quoting Geir
Braathen with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Did
you know that cold weather had "Usually in cold winters we observe that about 25% of the ozone disappears, but this winter was really a record - 40% of the column has disappeared," said Dr Florence Goutail from the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Winters getting colder "Research by Markus Rex from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany suggests that winters that stand out as being cold in the Arctic stratosphere are getting colder." "For the next few decades, the [Arctic ozone] story is driven by temperatures, and we don't understand what's driving this [downward] trend," he said. "It's a big challenge to understand it and how it will drive ozone loss over coming decades."
An
annual occurrence in the Antarctic
MSNBC
mentions colder weather only once Only once! Colder weather in the upper atmosphere is the whole point of the story - and they mention it only once! Sort of an unimportant filler. They actually make it look as if the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are the causing factor. The record ozone loss "comes despite the 'very successful' Montreal Protocol aimed at cutting production and consumption of ozone-destroying chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons,” the MSNBC article warns. "The substances were once present in refrigerators, spray cans and fire extinguishers, but have been phased out." (Talk about trying to blame humans!)
"Nevertheless, due to the long
lifetimes of these compounds in the atmosphere, it will take several decades
before their concentrations return to pre-1980 levels." Their title, as with the BBC's, makes no mention of cold weather being the cause.
Compare the two articles. I think you'll be amazed at MSNBC's duplicity.
Just
for fun, also see:
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