Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Remember when that "highly successful" treaty allegedly fixed the ozone hole? Never mind

Montreal Protocol Celebrated for Ozone Success - Bikya Masr
WASHINGTON, DC: September 16 marked the 23rd anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty that was created in 1987 to protect and restore the ozone layer. The treaty has not only achieved each of its goals over the last several decades, including this year’s major milestone which marks the complete phase-out of CFCs, it has also become the world’s best climate treaty, to date.
Ozone Hole is Back and Big - ABC News
Ozone Hole Over Antarctic Has Reappeared and Is Already Large
...
Although the hole has widened in recent years, there is some good news: it's expected to go away — at least eventually. Since the issue was addressed at a 1985 world conference in Vienna, nations have effectively reduced their use of CFCs.

"Basically chlorine molecules in the stratosphere peaked a couple years ago," says Susan Solomon, a senior scientist at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research center in Boulder, Colo. who was among the first scientists to discover the correlation of CFCs and ozone depletion. "But because these things live in the atmosphere for many decades, we'll have an ozone hole until at least the 2040s."

Newman says he and his colleagues remain only "cautiously optimistic" that the hole will go away in the next 40-50 years./blockquote>

1 comment:

gofer said...

Did anyone ever bother to question if the hole (thinning)was natural when they discovered it?? It will always appear based on how ozone is created.