BACK TO OZONE: ANOTHER GREENIE SCARE TORPEDOED

And note that it is now years since the ozone-limiting Montreal agreement went into effect but they still don't know how ozone levels work. They regulate what they don't understand -- but that's Leftism all over, of course

"The reported risk of a hole in the ozone layer appearing over the Arctic this winter has been overstated, a Swedish researcher said Wednesday. "The stratosphere in the Arctic region has been unusually cold this winter," said Donal Murtagh, a professor of global environmental measurements at the Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg.

Murtagh also is the lead director for atmospheric science research for the Swedish orbital observatory Odin, which orbits the poles.

Ozone, a form of oxygen, helps protect the Earth from some of the damaging ultraviolet radiation from the sun. The reduction of ozone has led to fears of more skin cancer and other problems in affected areas. Low temperatures this year have created large amounts of ozone-destroying chlorine compounds in the stratosphere at the end of January, which resulted in reports of the likely appearance of an "ozone hole," he said. Using the satellite, and computers on the ground, he said researchers have found that the threat of such a hole was unlikely, unless temperatures remain cold beyond winter. "Only renewed cooling of the stratosphere could change the situation, but it is hard to see how this could happen," he said.

Launched in 2001, Odin is the only satellite to have mapped the amount of chlorine in the ozone layer. The primary purpose of its ozone studies is not to verify the existence of holes, but to unravel the mechanisms behind their appearance. Besides Sweden, France, Canada and Finland are involved in the project, named for the chief deity in Norse mythology. Odin was designed and developed by the Swedish Space Corp. and its operations are based at the Esrange rocket launching pad near Kiruna, some 765 miles north of the capital."

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WICKED SUN CAUSED OZONE HOLE

Get the sun to sign a treaty! Seriously, though, in science, if you can't predict it, you don't understand it and the Greenie scientists haven't got a clue about this stuff

A dramatic thinning of Earth's protective ozone layer above the Arctic last year was the result of intense upper-level winds and an extra dose of space weather, scientists said Tuesday. Ozone, which screens out some of the Sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation, declined by up to 60 percent in the stratosphere over high northern latitudes in the spring of 2004. Officials issued a health warning earlier this year for residents of the far North.

In a new study, scientists conclude that an intense round of solar storms around Halloween in 2003 was at the root of the problem. Charged particles from the storms triggered chemical reactions that increased the formation of extra nitrogen in the upper stratosphere, some 20 miles up. Nitrogen levels climbed to their highest in at least two decades.

A massive low-pressure system that confines air over the Arctic then conspired to deplete ozone. Upper-atmosphere winds associated with the system, called the polar stratospheric vortex, sped up in February and March of 2004 to the fastest speeds ever recorded, the new study found. The spinning vortex allowed nitrogen gas to sink from the high stratosphere, some 20 miles up, to lower altitudes.

The nitrogen gas is known to destroy ozone. "This decline was completely unexpected," said Cora Randall, a physicist at the University of Colorado, Boulder who led the study. "The findings point out a critical need to better understand the processes occurring in the ozone layer."

Researchers from Canada and Europe contributed to the study, which drew data from seven satellites. The results are detailed in the March 2 online issue of Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union.

Ozone is a form of oxygen. Its protective qualities make life as we know it possible. (Near the ground, ozone plays the opposite role, being the main component in smog. The upper-level ozone layer has thinned dramatically in the Southern Hemisphere in recent decades, creating a dangerous hole through which UV rays stream. The decline is due largely to man-made chlorofluorocarbons released into the atmosphere.

The new study suggests a better understanding is needed of how the Sun itself alters the ozone layer. "No one predicted the dramatic loss of ozone in the upper stratosphere of the Northern Hemisphere in the spring of 2004," Randall said. "That we can still be surprised illustrates the difficulties in separating atmospheric effects due to natural and human-induced causes."

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Attack of the killer crops?: "Activists are again trying to frighten poor people in developing countries by claiming the U.S. is poisoning them with genetically modified food. Never mind that 280 million Americans have been eating biotech-enhanced crops for nearly a decade with zero evidence that it has caused anyone so much as a sniffle or a bellyache. Friends of the Earth tested samples of corn and soybean distributed both commercially and as aid to several Central American countries, to see if they contained genetically modified varieties. They really needn't have bothered, since it's public knowledge that 85 percent of U.S. soybean acreage and 45 percent of its corn are sown in biotech crop varieties that are resistant to pests and herbicides. What would be surprising is if they found no genetically enhanced corn or soybeans in food shipments from the States. The activists merely went through the motions of testing the crops to place a scientific facade on their latest biotech scare."

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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