New hole in the atmosphere discovered

a reply to: Phage

Ok. Please show how nuclear testing 55 years ago can cause of dearth of ozone today.

1. Water vapor. Atmospheric nuclear tests got it into the stratosphere and there it stays. The following link describes the chemistry and physics between the stratosphere and the mesosphere that keeps redistributing, re-suspending and recreating water vapor.

Atmospheric hypotheses' of Earth's global warming

When a nuclear charge explodes at the Earth’s surface or in the atmosphere, the shock wave vents water vapor from the troposphere to the stratosphere through tropopause. For some period (˜ 3 years) water vapor in the stratosphere and aerosol, and dust in the troposphere and stratosphere suffice for the defense of the Earth from solar radiation.

Almost the whole of the stratosphere and mesosphere consists of molecular oxygen O2 and molecular nitrogen N2. Also ozone O3 is formed in comparatively small quantities with the help of solar radiation. The first distinction is the temperature gradient: temperature grows with altitude in the stratosphere approximately from -55 degrees to O degrees and diminishes in the mesosphere, from about O degrees to -95 degrees (see Fig. 2). The second distinction consists in the different pressure and density, which are several times less in the mesosphere than in the stratosphere.

Therefore, water vapour in the troposphere (such as is formed during atmospheric nuclear tests), comes to a temperature below freezing point almost everywhere except its upper border. Thus it forms crystals having greater density than the ambient gas.

But water vapour in the mesosphere is another matter. At a pressure hundreds of times less than at atmospheric pressure at sea level, the freezing point of water vapour shifts to a vastly negative temperature without the intermediate liquid state (see Fig. 3). Therefore there exists a sizable layer spanning the higher part of the stratosphere and lower part of the mesosphere where water is in the gas state.

Therefore it has some tendency to move up in rapidly moving flows with some stirring against the background of diffusion. When it migrates, gas climbs to a temperature below freezing point, crystallizes and migrates down. There it evaporates missing the liquid state, and the process repeats. Thus, mesopause with a strongly negative temperature of around -95 degrees prevents water vapor leaving beyond the upper bound of the mesosphere.

And from the initial explosion - heat and shock - recovery is not guaranteed.

The Ozone Hole

Gamma-rays are the most energetic form of light and are produced by the hottest regions of the universe. They are also produced by such violent events as supernova explosions or the destruction of atoms, and by less dramatic events, such as the decay of radioactive material in space.

A Gamma-ray burst could wipe out all living species on the planet Earth at any time with no warning and destroy the ozone layer in the process. There is no protection for the planet from this fate.

History of EMP Pulse Weapons

The process of the gamma rays knocking electrons out of the atoms in the mid-stratosphere causes this region of the atmosphere to become an electrical conductor due to ionization, a process which blocks the production of further electromagnetic signals and causes the field strength to saturate at about 50,000 volts per metre.

And radiation from these tests just goes on and on in the stratosphere...

Atmospheric Science: Radioactive particles from nuclear weapon tests stick around

Concentrations of radioactive particles injected into the high layer of the atmosphere by activities like nuclear testing are larger than expected. This discovery is reported in a paper published in Nature Communications this week. The work also provides evidence that volcanic eruptions can redistribute the particles from higher to lower atmospheric layers, bringing them closer to Earth.

But it was all for a good cause - improving communication - the military buzz word i.e that's what HAARP is for as well.

Can Geoengineering Save the World from Global Warming?

Scientific American corresponded with science historian James Fleming of Colby College in Maine, author of Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control

Geo-scale engineering projects were conducted by both the U.S. and the Soviet Union between 1958 and 1962 that had nothing to do with countering or ameliorating climate change. Starting with the [U.S.'s] 1958 Argus A-bomb explosions in space and ending with the 1962 Starfish Prime H-bomb test, the militaries of both nations sought to modify the global environment for military purposes.

And then there's smoke. But back then there really wasn't any fuel in the sky so I guess I don't need to cover that.

a reply to: luxordelphi
Probably not worth mentioning but I'll do it anyway.

There are roughly 2000 thunderstorms in progress around the world at any one time producing about 30 to 100 cloud to ground flashes each second or about five million flashes a day. But thunderstorms produce much more than just lightning bolts. Heat from lightning flashes produces 100 million tonnes of nitrogen fertilizer every year. Five times hotter than the sun, every 10,000,000 volts of a lightning bolt creates new molecules, such as NOx - which is then deposited into the stratosphere where it can affect other compounds such as ozone. Thunderheads also deliver vast quantities of water vapour into the stratosphere - the greatest 'green-house gas' on earth.

www.abc.net.au...

This is a noteworthy reminder

Stratospheric water vapor concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000. Here we show that this acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000–2009 by about 25% compared to that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

www.sciencemag.org...

How could that happen? Didn't planes fly from 2000-2009? I guess removing aviation from the Earth would still help a little bit though. At least until you factor in the polluting effects of its replacements.

a reply to: Phage

On the contrary. The mechanism is quite well explained.

(Re my contention that this newly discovered ozone hole has not been properly explained and that claims for it being natural and always having been there are premature.)

You are referring to this quote:

"Like a giant elevator to the stratosphere"

Ozone, in turn, forms in the lower atmosphere only if there are sufficient nitrogen oxides there. Large amounts of nitrogen oxide compounds are produced in particular by intensive lightning over land. However, the air masses in the tropical West Pacific were not exposed to any continental tropical storms for a very long time during their transport across the giant ocean. And the lightning activity in storms over the ocean is relatively small. At the same time the lifetime of atmospheric ozone is short due to the exceptionally warm and moist conditions in the tropical West Pacific.

This article is saying that air parcels cross the Pacific on their way west without contact with land/forests/etc. OH would normally form from ozone in a situation like this BUT there is no ozone here. No ozone because ozone forms with nitrogen oxides and there are no nitrogen oxides because there are no tropical storms and there is no lightning. Also, the ocean here is warmer than anywhere else so ozone lifetimes are consequently short. Warm air rises (vertical mixing) and is ozone and OH free. Hence, the hole.

So, do air parcels cross the Pacific on their way west? Trade wind anomalies say no.

All Indicators Suggest El Nino likely in 2014 says BoM/Trade Winds

Westerly wind anomalies are present over the western tropical Pacific while trade winds are near-average along the equator in the eastern tropical Pacific (see anomaly map for the 5 days ending 23 March). A reversal of the trade winds (i.e. winds becoming westerly in the equatorial region) in the western Pacific has extended east to the Date Line; this is the first time this has occurred since the 2009–10 El Niño.

Is there lightning over the ocean? Cloud to ocean lightning...I'm thinking rare. Lightning within the hurricane/cyclone...I'm thinking yes. In fact I'm thinking that's one of the ways that researchers tell whether or not a hurricane/cyclone will weaken or intensify.

Are there tropical storms in this area? There are a number of sites that have warning systems for island dwellers and for marine traffic so I think there are.

Fiji Meteorological Service

Does warm air rise? Yes. One out of three. Nothing in the media stories or anywhere else shows that this is a natural phenom. Nothing shows it has always been here. Nothing shows that there is understanding of how this happened. I would venture that surface and underwater nuclear testing in this area might have contributed to a dead ocean. That, however, would not be considered a natural process.

So, do air parcels cross the Pacific on their way west? Trade wind anomalies say no.

Actually, the El Nino tradewind reversals started just this past January. The reversals are transient, coming and going over some areas for a matter of days or weeks for few months as part of ENSO (except particularly strong events when it can last over a longer period of time). For the majority of the time the easterlies cross the entire tropical Pacific . You can find the wind indices for the region here: www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov...
Of main interest is the "Original Data" table. Note that a negative value indicates an average monthly reversal, not that the trades were blowing west the whole time. You can see that for the vast majority of the time, the easterlies (indicated by positive values) prevail.
Here's a really cool thing, showing pretty much real time global wind patterns. As I'm looking at it I can see a limited area of reversal in the region but the overall flow is easterly and the westerlies are actually fed by the easterlies to the north. There is no flow from any major nearby landmass.
earth.nullschool.net...

In fact I'm thinking that's one of the ways that researchers tell whether or not a hurricane/cyclone will weaken or intensify.

Actually no, they rely mostly on sea surface temperatures and winds aloft to make those predictions.

Lightning over the ocean is indeed much less prevalent than over land masses.

"Oceanic areas also experience [a dearth of lightning]," Christian says. "People living on some of the islands in the Pacific don't describe much lightning in their language." The ocean surface doesn't warm up as much as land does during the day because of water's higher heat capacity. Heating of low-lying air is crucial for storm formation, so the oceans don't experience as many thunderstorms.

science1.nasa.gov...

Are there tropical storms in this area?

Of course there are. That does not mean they are frequent or that lightning is. The above link has a chart showing the global distribution of lightning. It's sparse in equatorial oceans, including in the region of the hyroxyl hole.

Nothing shows it has always been here. Nothing shows that there is understanding of how this happened.

There is no reason to think it has not always occurred. It's simply the first time there has been such data for the region.

There is plenty that shows that there is an understanding of how and why it occurs.

a reply to: luxordelphi

Atmospheric nuclear tests got it into the stratosphere and there it stays.

1) We were talking about the tropospheric hole over the west Pacific, not the stratosphere. Remember?

Looks like this current 'new' hole is sitting right there near the Marshall Islands so that's probably the best theory yet.

But it was all for a good cause - improving communication

No. Nuclear testing was not about improving communication. It was about improving weapons.

originally posted by: luxordelphi


Is there lightning over the ocean? Cloud to ocean lightning...I'm thinking rare.

It doesn't take long to find a map of lightening strikes showing plenty of such areas - eg here

a reply to: Phage

Those "dry slots" are transient, not permanent. They move. Take a look at the water vapor imagery your quote mentions.

That image is at 8 kilometers/26,000 feet, looking down over mid-latitudes. The troposphere contains weather - it moves. So what?

If that is the case, if jets are adding humungous amounts of water vapor, why haven't water vapor levels risen in the past decade? Jets don't seem to be having much of an effect, do they?

Stratospheric water vapor levels are rising.

Stratospheric water vapor at Boulder up slightly in 30 years

Look at the chart. At 52,500 to 59,000 feet, water vapor levels rose from 1980; fell in 1985; rose steadily through 2002 - 2003; fell through 2005 but never back to 1980 levels; rose again after 2005. The red line. Some of the other colors in even higher parts show much more of an increase.

30% of the increase is attributed to methane chemistry in the stratosphere. Efforts to link some of the rest of the increase to colder tropical tropopause temperatures have so far proven elusive.

Then why, with all those jets flying over Colorado, doesn't water vapor just stay there and accumulate? Since it lasts "several months, several decades, millenia" and the stratosphere is "static?"

We discussed this already. The stratosphere is static as far as weather goes. It is not static to physics and chemistry and Rossby waves. A previous link I put up explained the stratosphere/mesosphere water vapor interaction pretty clearly. You, yourself, I think, previously mentioned the lightning link. All that's left is sunlight. (Except for global warming/climate change.)

Stratospheric Water Vapour

Overall, the distribution of stratospheric water vapour is determined by the interaction of radiation, chemistry, and dynamics. Considering the sources, water vapour enters the stratosphere through vertical transport in the (tropical) tropopause region and is photochemically produced in the upper stratosphere through the oxidation of methane. The only sink of water vapour in the upper atmosphere is through photolysis by Lyman-a with its efficiency increasing with altitude in the mesosphere.

Evolution of the Atmosphere

Photolysis of water vapor and carbon dioxide produce hydroxyl and atomic oxygen, respectively, that, in turn, produce oxygen in small concentrations. This process produced oxygen for the early atmosphere before photosynthesis became dominant.

Oxygen increased in stages, first through photolysis (Figure 1) of water vapor and carbon dioxide by ultraviolet energy and, possibly, lightning

once sufficient oxygen had accumulated in the stratosphere, it was acted on by sunlight to form ozone

And what does air traffic have to do with the hydroxl hole in the tropical west Pacific anyway?

Don't flights go through there? Or is this hole a no-fly zone? Isn't this the area where the ice crystal problems happen?

There can't be an elevator to the stratosphere if the tropopause is anomalously cold. And an elevator could use one of those tropical storms with an anvil cloud.

FAA formalises warning on GEnx icing problem

The ice crystals form inside the engines during convective thunderstorms at high altitude, which occur rarely but almost always at tropical latitudes.

a reply to: DenyObfuscation

For sure it's worth mentioning...worth far more than just a mention. I don't have enough information to adequately dialogue with you on these issues. I don't know enough to have formed a clear path here. I think that lightning in some ways is key. Kind of like the cloud seeding where the question is always whether or not inducing rain in one place is then denying rain in another. Same for lightning - does inducing it in one place, deny it to another? Does artificial lightning release charge that would have been better left to build up and elsewhere release? Because of its' role in the chemistry of ozone and OH...it seems like it. Because the tropical air masses at the height of the tropics seem to play a key role in ozone levels at the poles, it seems like it. If we mitigate tropical storms, is this the result? These are some of my questions.

I think that direct emissions into the stratosphere are bad. I don't know if it's a system where once you start, you can't stop because the atmosphere compensates and initiates a different cycle to deal with the extra stuff. To me it seems almost so if you look at this graph. The levels steadily go up but there are downs, some of them marked. This newly discovered hole in the atmosphere doesn't seem natural to me but it's difficult to pin down because so much of our environment, today, is climate change/global warming which creates anomalies which means that we have to be open to learning new patterns, imo.

a reply to: luxordelphi

That image is at 8 kilometers/26,000 feet, looking down over mid-latitudes.

No.
8 km is the resolution of the imagery not the altitude. Optical imagery (IR which is what WV imagery is, visible) cannot select an altitude. Your link about the "dry slots" recommending looking at water vapor imagery. That's why I posted the link.

Stratospheric water vapor levels are rising.

That's interesting. Let's look more closely at that chart. The altitude we're most likely to be concerned with is 16-18 km even though that's quite a bit higher than most jets fly. But even using that altitude, as has been pointed out, there has been a slight overall rise since 1980. But there is that troublesome drop from 2001 to 2005. It did increase a bit between 2005 and 2007 but again shows a decline after that (which you didn't mention). The next level, 18-20 km, shows a similar pattern. If jets are dumping humungous amounts of water vapor into the stratosphere (enough to have some detrimental effect), why the decreases? Why the big drop after 2000? Why the drop after 2007? Why were water vapor levels lower in 2010 than they were in 2000?

A previous link I put up explained the stratosphere/mesosphere water vapor interaction pretty clearly.

Yes, it did. What does what happens in the stratopause (at an altitude of around 165,000 feet) have to do with what happens at the bottom of the stratosphere?

You, yourself, I think, previously mentioned the lightning link. All that's left is sunlight.

What effect does lightning have on water vapor levels? What effect does sunlight have on water vapor levels?

I'm still not seeing why, if jets are dumping humungous amounts of water vapor into the lower stratosphere, water vapor levels have not been steadily rising since (as you claim) water vapor resides for "several months, several decades, millenia." Still not seeing cause and effect in regard to water vapor from aircraft. Your own link says that water vapor is generated in the upper stratosphere by methane oxidation and only goes through photolysis in the mesosphere.

The only sink of water vapour in the upper atmosphere is through photolysis by Lyman-a with its efficiency increasing with altitude in the mesosphere.

Don't flights go through there? Or is this hole a no-fly zone? Isn't this the area where the ice crystal problems happen?

Yes, they do. But the hole is in the lower atmosphere, the troposphere. Aren't you complaining about the effects of jets on the stratosphere, above the tropopause? Also, as pointed out, jet emissions are pretty much O3 neutral. I don't know how you come to the conclusion that jets may have something to do with the hydroxl hole in the tropical west Pacific.

There can't be an elevator to the stratosphere if the tropopause is anomalously cold. And an elevator could use one of those tropical storms with an anvil cloud.

Are you saying the tropopause is anomalously cold in the tropical west Pacific? Do you have some data on that?

a reply to: Phage

The site you put up is nice looking, however, I don't see reversals in the area under discussion...perhaps a lag in data input?

The table is interesting because it seems like reversals are actually slowing down and almost getting ready to come to a grinding halt - starts right around 2002 - 2003. Values for the reversals seem to also become less from that time on.

Using in storm lightning to predict intensity is actually a real thing:

Lightning is new hurricane prediction tool

In comparing lightning activity with hurricane wind speed, the researchers found a correlation between the two. The surprise, Yair said, was that lightning activity often peaked hours before winds reached their strongest point.

...and tornadoes too:

Can lightning help predict tornadoes?

A sudden surge in lightning activity along with wild fluctuations in a storm’s electric field may help predict tornado formation a local researcher has found.

...in the above article researchers "During the storm's lightning peak, JHU/APL sensors measured total lightning strikes exceeding 1,000 per minute." and that brings us to the ongoing DARPA lightning experiments using the U.S. as a laboratory for same and to how this might skew long term densities of lightning on global renderings. (Unless you believe that all that equipment and researchers in the above article just happened to be wandering there when the storm hit.)

In this image of one day density average you can clearly see that there is plenty of lightning within the area of the newly discovered hole in the atmosphere. In fact, just from a visual perspective, there seems to be far more lightning here than in the Atlantic with the exception of the Florida anomaly. This is from WWLLN (World Wide Lightning Location Network.)

Tropical storms, at a cursory glance, also appear prevalent. I'm seeing that, unlike the Atlantic where the storms come off of Africa and cross the ocean to the Americas, these storms form in the south west Pacific itself. And with westerly trade wind anomalies would continue right on through this hole. West Pacific Basin product shows formation there now.

This year and 2012 saw very severe storms in the Solomon Islands which are in this general area. I'm just not getting a sense of rare and uncommon for lightning and tropical storms in the newhole area. I'm also not getting a sense of crossing the Pacific from the Americas trumping local action.

To sum, there is every reason to suspect that this hole has not been there always. And there is little to substantiate a natural causes explanation. There are specific reasons to suspect nuclear pulverization and the usual suspects jet emissions i.e. water vapor & carbon dioxide and pollution from Asia.

a reply to: Phage

1) We were talking about the tropospheric hole over the west Pacific, not the stratosphere. Remember?

We were talking about "an elevator to the stratosphere" i.e. the Pacific newhole.

No. Nuclear testing was not about improving communication. It was about improving weapons.

Really? I thought atmospheric testing was all about communicating radiation along magnetic field lines to conjugate points.

a reply to: luxordelphi

We were talking about "an elevator to the stratosphere" i.e. the Pacific newhole.

Which is in the troposphere, from the surface to the tropopause. To refresh your memory, this is what I asked about you comment regarding the tropical west Pacific "hole" and nuclear testing:

Can you provide the mechanism whereby atmospheric nuclear testing would create a dearth of hydroxl which would persist for 55 years?

You have not provided such a mechanism.

Really? I thought atmospheric testing was all about communicating radiation along magnetic field lines to conjugate points.

You thought wrong. It was about developing nuclear weapons, as was underground testing. Oh, with the exception of Plowshare, a really stupid idea cooked up by Edward Teller, but it had nothing to do with communications either.