The Hole in the Ozone Hole Story

The comic book serial, Asterix and Oblelix, presents an ancient Gaulish village where people are brave enough to resist the onslaught of the Roman Empire, but are frightened that the sky may fall down on their head. The global village that we live in now, has an almost similar fear: the ozone hole in the Polar Regions will keep increasing and the ultraviolet rays will damage vegetation, increase the incidence of cataract and mutate our skin cells to make them cancerous and we will die of skin cancer. The pale face, the white race, will suffer the most. The black and the browns will resist the effects of ultraviolet better because they have melatonin pigment in their skins.

The implication of the story that is presented by the media is that the people who live in the tropics are responsible. These people who live in hot climes are stinky and therefore use body sprays. They want to drink cold water and keep their food from rotting and therefore use refrigerators. They use air-conditioners to keep themselves cool. And in the process they liberate what the media fondly calls CFCs – Chlorofluorocarbons. It is these CFCs that are responsible for the ozone hole. In other words, these browns and blacks – they will ultimately take over the earth after killing off the white skinned people with skin cancer.

This doomsday prediction and the implied blame are based on some seemingly scientific facts. Let us take a look at the facts and separate them from the mediated myths.

The CFCs are mostly liberated in the tropical areas, less in temperate zones and almost none at poles. And yet, the hole is at the poles. What is the mechanism by which the CFCs from the sea level in tropical areas are selectively funneled to the Polar Regions and then taken up through a few kilometers of troposphere so that they can selectively destroy the ozone in the stratosphere and make a hole there?

In Malayalam, my mother tongue, there is a saying which means that if you accidentally fall down, make sure that you roll around a bit so that the onlookers think that you fell down purposely. When media people and the self styled experts are asked this question, they do exactly that. They will tell you that there is a highly mathematical model, which we, ordinary mortals, can never hope to understand and that it explains how this happens. If you say that you are still interested and would like to take a look at the mathematical model, you will suddenly become invisible. They will look through you and pretend that you do not exist.

There is another way to become invisible. Ask this question: how do we know that the ozone hole did not exist before human beings started using CFCs?

CFCs as a refrigerant was first proposed in the early part of the 20^th century. They were marketed extensively by the middle of the 20^th century. Though there were suspicions that the ozone layer may not have the same thickness at all times, the ozone hole was first observed in the mid 1980s. Before that there were no scientific observations. It is possible that the ozone hole was present in the 19^th century, two million years ago when the bipeds, which go by the name of Homo sapiens, were not walking on the planet.

Now here is another inconvenient question that you might ask – since you are already invisible, it won’t harm you any more to ask it. Why does the ozone hole shrink and expand?

During the last two decades of observations, the ozone hole does not seem to keep pace with the production and use of CFCs. It shrinks and expands in a way, which is quite disconcerting to the proponents of the CFCs-cause-ozone-hole theory.

Though the questions are quite inconvenient to the proponents, the theory that CFCs are responsible for ozone hole is quite convenient to business. The replacement is costlier.

The situation is quite similar to the ban on di-iodoquine (di-iodo-hydroxyquinoline which was marketed as Mexaform), a low cost treatment for amoebiasis. As soon as Metronidazole, which could be marketed at a much higher price, became available, di-iodoquine became a horrible drug. The reason – when taken at very high doses for a very long period, it may damage the optic nerve. It does not matter that people in the tropics, where the disease is rampant, do not take the drug for such long periods or for such long duration – not when there is money to be made.

But let us go back to the ozone hole story and ask some more questions that the invisible people on earth should learn to ask. It is ultraviolet that creates ozone in the stratosphere, right? Yes, ultraviolet dissociates molecular oxygen into two atoms which are highly reactive and they immediately combine with the nearby oxygen molecule to form ozone. Ah, so we are saying that if the ozone layer gets depleted in the stratosphere, ultraviolet will go through 7 kilometers of troposphere, somehow avoiding all the oxygen molecules – nearly 20 percent of the atmosphere is oxygen – just to cause skin cancer and cataract?

Since it defies the concept of light traveling in straight lines, there should be a theory which explains the photons being like a football kicked around to avoid the legs and heads of 11 players to reach the goal. Please can you explain that theory?

By now you are not only invisible, but also inaudible to the self-styled experts and the proponents of the CFC-ozone hole-ultraviolet-skin cancer theory in the media. So they will not even pretend to roll around. But then, you are not dead – though you are curious, you are not a cat. So here is another question: if CFCs are not causing the ozone hole, what is the reason for the ozone hole?

The Sun spews out not only photons in the visible, infrared and ultraviolet ranges, but also a large number of charged particles. These charged particles cannot enter the earth’s atmosphere at the tropical areas since earth has a magnetic field which deflects the charged particles. But they can enter the poles where they create the splendour of the arorae. The arorae are phenomena produced by the interaction of the charged particles with the earth’s atmosphere. The atmospheric atoms are excited – meaning that the electrons are pushed into higher orbits – and when they come back to their ground state, they liberate light which we see as the arorae.

Now - besides exciting the atmospheric atoms, the charged particles also ionize them – remove the electrons. Ionized atoms are more reactive. Since nearly 80 percent of the atmosphere is nitrogen and nearly 20 percent is oxygen, they combine to form nitrous oxides. Nitrous oxides are known to react with ozone. Ozone depletion in the “hole” could be because of that.

Large columns of nitrous oxides have been detected in the upper atmosphere at the poles.

Since the input of charged particles from the sun increases and decreases depending on the sun’s activity, the ozone hole thus produced also increases and decreases.

The notion of non-anthropogenic Nitrous oxides depleting ozone may not be quite convenient to the experts. But it has more explanatory power and answers questions that the CFCs-cause-ozone-hole-theory cannot.

The ultimate question is - which one do you like better? One which has too many holes or one that sounds reasonable?

Global Warning- A Convenient Falsehood?

I have been trying to understand Global Warming for the last twenty years. To remove some of my confusions about the issue, I have been asking some questions in different platforms and writing to “experts”. And I come across a deafening silence. So much so that I have started feeling that it is yet another media created hype, sustained by politicians. Like the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, it might end up being a farce.

My problem, as a person who has been studying science, is the unscientific manner in which conclusions are drawn.

Firstly, nobody attempts to answer the question about what caused global warming and cooling before human beings came on earth?

One has to separate the factors that influence the temperature of the earth. Keeping all other factors constant and changing only one at a time, we can find precise relationships, in a scientific manner.

Yes, I am aware of Milankovitch and the correlation between the precession of the earth (a kind of wobbling of the earth’s axis) and global warming/cooling cycles. But why should precession increase or decrease temperature? What is the causal relationship between precession and temperature?

Moreover, it is not an exact relationship. There are periods of heating and cooling which even precession does not seem to explain. What, for instance, caused the Little Ice Age(s) which happened in recorded history? It would appear that there are some other, external causes for heating and cooling, and that precession helps only to amplify the effect felt on the earth.

Whatever the causes, we should first be able to say that they do not exert any influence in the present increasing temperatures, before we go hunting for other causes, before we claim that it is “anthropogenic” – a highly sexist term, some would say.

Secondly, it has been seen that the temperature and Carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere go up and down together - even before human beings evolved. What caused these increases and decreases in Carbon Dioxide before fossil fuel burning? Again, the experts do not want to tell me, an ordinary mortal, perhaps out of fear that they will strain my brain.

Co-incidence or correlation does not necessarily mean that one is causing the other. Ambrose Bierce tells us this aphorism/story in which this guy sees a rabbit running and after the rabbit is a fox. He sees this scenario a few times and concludes that rabbits cause foxes! I am sure he had a reason to write the story at that time, as there is for my re-telling the story now.

Perhaps there is a third factor, which is causing both the increase in Carbon dioxide and the temperature. Have we removed the possibility before jumping to conclusions?

Thirdly, the Greenhouse Effect is the only principle that is being used for attributing the cause of increased temperature to Carbon dioxide. But please consider the three propositions:

Carbon dioxide is a highly dissolvable gas
Most of the earth’s surface is covered by water
If you open a soda which is warm, it will liberate carbon dioxide whereas a cold soda bottle will retain the Carbon dioxide dissolved in it.

From these three simple observations, one could conclude that the increase in temperature caused the increased liberation of dissolved Carbon dioxide from lakes and oceans leading to the increased amount of the gas in the atmosphere of the earth in the past.

Perhaps the increase in Carbon dioxide of the present day is because of the global warming, rather than the other way around. Why are we being blind to this possibility?

Fourthly, the Sun is the most important source of heat for the earth. And we know that there is some amount of variation in the activity of the sun. There are a large number of papers in journals like Science and Nature that relate the sun’s activity and the temperature of the earth. But in true scientific spirit, such data is held as a possibility, but not necessarily true, while the theory of fossil fuel burning causing the global warming is held as undeniably true. Why?

Having got no answers for the last 20 years, I have begun to think that global warming is not really a scientific issue, but a political issue. It is a part of the political platform for the next election in the US. Gore, a politician, is the most vocal proponent of the theory of Global-Warming-because-of-Carbon dioxide.

The “experts” in the climate change are all appointed by the Governments and they have a tendency to disregard contrary scientific opinions, without even attempting to refute or answer them – very reminiscent of the “intelligence” of pre-Iraq-war days. The whole idea seems to be bulldozed into the public view for a political reason. It would be convenient to rein in India and China, perhaps?

Or is it the notion of sin? We human beings are sinners who will cause the destruction of the earth? God will punish us by frying us alive?

I am not too sure whether it is political or religious, but definitely not really scientific.

Fifth is the issue of the predictions about the effects - rise in the sea level. (Pralaya- another mythological imagery, quite useful in propaganda).

When I fly over the west coast of India, I see parallel lines of paddy fields and coconut trees. I thought it was strange and good enough for a story on Turning Point, a popular science TV magazine in India. So I dug up the story. It seems that 18,000 years ago, the sea was about 100 kilometers from the present shore. It started rising up and this went on till 4,000 years ago. By this time, the sea was about 20 kilometers into the land from the present sea shore. Then it started receding and about 3,000 years ago, it came back and assumed its present position.

These are broad strokes, actually. Neither the climbing nor the receding of the sea were really linear within this period also. So when the sea recedes, it leaves behind sand, behind which clay deposits form. On the sandy part, coconut thrives and on the clay paddy is cultivated now.

What caused these ups and downs in the sea level?

Sixth. Humans evolved on the planet one or two million years ago. At least some of them had mastered fire and agriculture about 10,000 years ago. Why did they wait till the sea levels rose to the maximum before they started their ancient “civilizations”? Many anthropologists are saying that climate change was the reason for ancient civilizations. Is increasing sea level good for creating a global civilization today?

I did not do the story for Turning point since I could not get a clear answer.


Seven. Consider also that all this fossil fuel is really a result of living processes, which are primarily carbon based. The carbon that is trapped under the earth by billions of years of life processes is now not available to the Carbon cycle. Perhaps it is good to liberate it back into the Carbon cycle to re-energise the life processes on the earth?


These are some of my confusions and I wish some expert will help me to remove them. Being a science communicator for a few years and a trainer of science communicators now, I have the audacity to question scientists and self-styled or state-appointed experts. This is my original sin for which even some of my professors were angry when I was young. But I am compelled to continue raising the questions till I understand and my confusions are removed. Sorry.

Compounding my confusion is my anxiety about the “conviction” that some people have about the anthropogenic global warming. And they are taking steps to counter the reason for their convictions. Reminds me of the conviction that Tony Blair and George Bush had about the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. In spite of the few lone voices saying that the true reason for the invasion is oil, the media did not find it good enough to balance the convictions with some reasonable doubt about the “intelligence”.

In a true Marxist fashion, people are now about to change the world without really understanding how it functions. The convictions based on the recommendations of the “expert panel” have lead people to suggest that Thailand should stop rice cultivation since paddy fields are wetlands that emit methane, a green house gas. If all wetlands including all the paddy fields disappear from the earth because of the “conviction”, it will perhaps be a bigger disaster than Iraq.

And it appears that while deforestation of the temperate zones is okay, one should not cut trees in the tropical areas, since trees in tropical areas are better carbon sinks. In other words, the developed countries are allowed to harvest their forests while the developing countries should be restrained. How very convenient!

In India, we are fond of laughing at “committees” for their collective stupidity, though they are intended for making decisions based on their collective wisdom. But the word “expert panel” does not yet evoke the same sense, even if it actually brings out the collective ignorance.

Ever since Newton (who did not like to be criticized), scientists have indulged in making their work difficult to be understood by common man. Philosophers like Hegel and Sartre also used this trick. A friend of mine who wanted to publish a scholarly work was asked by his publisher whether he could make it a little more difficult to read. A certain amount of obscurantism is useful, if you want to be taken seriously as an expert. I would like to call this Brahminisation of science, an attempt to make knowledge less easily available to the “common” man. Though it is useful to the survival of people like me who “translate” such works, it leads to un-necessary confusions. The reports by the “expert panel” are quite commendable from this perspective.

No true scientist will ever say that the earth will warm up. They would rather say that the earth may warm up. It is the media that converts the “may” into “will”. As a science journalist, I am guilty of this practice. And as a trainer of science journalists, I have emphasised that one should be careful in changing the scientific “may” into the common parlance of “will”.

No self-respecting scientist of the twenty first century will make predictions on such a complex phenomenon as climate. Meteorologists will forecast – not predict. Predictions are for astrologers and soothsayers. And, of course, for the irresponsible part of the media, waiting to sensationalise the least.

Concepts like the non-linearity of most natural phenomena, oscillating steady state etc. have already permeated most scientific disciplines. So when forecasts are made based on models, scientists will have to pray to God that no butterfly flaps its wings, creating an un-expected turn of events. But there is no such hesitation in the minds of the enthusiasts and activists of global-warming-due-to-anthropogenic-causes.

Ever since humans invented god(s) to escape from the feeling of fear and ignorance, they have placed themselves just below gods and fairies. The collective illusion of grandeur is expressed very well in the theory of the anthropogenic cause of global warming. If we remind them that there have been at least five mass extinctions on the earth without any help from humans and that the last mass extinction wiped out about 96 percent of the living families, they may attribute it to God. But what is happening now is all due to us!

Once a sexually frustrated fly raped an elephant. After the frenzy was over, the fly felt ashamed and asked the elephant: “Did it hurt?”…

If insects had a neocortex (which is still developing as in the case of humans), they would also claim that all that is happening to the world is because of them. After all, they have more biomass than Homo sapiens.

There are some that hold that though this may be a falsehood, it is very convenient – it will wake people up to the need for reducing conspicuous consumption. Homo sapiens – poor saps! While some go around in private jets to lecture on Global Warming, some others would gladly and voluntarily go back to bullock carts with the belief that they are saving the next generation.

The credulity, lack of critical spirit and undue trust in experts and authority is more harmful to humanity than the damage that the puny human race can do the apparently highly resilient planet Earth, so full of living creatures in spite of five major mass extinctions.

Remember the experiment in which people were asked to administer electric shocks to human subjects? They were willing to administer very high voltages to other human beings just because they had the trust in the authority of the people who were doing the experiment. The experimenters were really looking to see how inhuman people can become when they trust authority blindly. Why, the torturers in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay are only as guilty as you are!

So whenever anybody talks about Global warming next time and says that human beings are responsible, ask these questions -
What caused global warming and cooling before humans evolved on the planet?
What caused increases and decreases in Carbon dioxide before fossil fuel burning?
What caused increases and decreases in sea level before human beings evolved?
What caused increases and decreases in sea level before fossil fuel burning?

And be prepared to meet with sullen silence. Or derisive laughter. At least that is what I have received in the last 20 years for asking inconvenient questions.

Recently, my friend Savyasachi Jain forwarded a story from BBC NEWS: It says "No Sun link to Climate Change".

Interestingly, the researchers admit that there was a link between climate and sun's activity, but that the Sun's output has declined over the last two decades and yet the temperatures on earth have risen. The research that BBC is quoting is supposed to settle the debate on the cause of climate change.

I do not know how the solar scientists will react to this. Because they have been saying that the sun's activity has been increasing from the 1940's. The "Modern Maximum" is supposed to peak around 2011. Take a look at the New Scientist article - Sun more active than for a millennium

IPCC and the present experts are looking at the solar irradiance. It does not change much. Estimates vary from 0.1% to 0.2%. I would also agree that it is not enough to explain global warming.

They are not, conveniently, looking at the output of particles from the sun. That can vary upto 60%.

The bow shock when these particles come into contact with the Earth’s magnetic field, the heating up of the upper atmosphere when they enter the poles and create the arorae, the swelling up of the ionosphere etc. are not considered at all.

The kinetic theory of gases says that the temperature is related to the kinetics of the molecules. Imagine the increases in temperature when the solar particles coming in with a speed of 400 kilometers per second come into contact with the atmospheric molecules.

If you look at the solar cycles 21 starting in 1976, cycle 22 starting in 1986 and cycle 23 starting in 1996 (http://www.dxlc.com/solar/cyclcomp.html ) it may appear that the sun is becoming less active. The thicker lines attract the eyes and we tend to jump to conclusions quite easily. But if you look at the average monthly sunspot number, given in dotted lines, you will find that they reach similar highs. What is not given in the graphs are the daily variations. When we average the numbers, even within a month, we lose sight of the real highs and the lows.

Sunspot number, averaged or not, is not a good measure of the sun's activity or its impact on climate change. If the solar wind does not lash against the earth and if it merely goes into the interplanetary space, how can it have any impact? A better measure is perhaps the Carbon 14 production. The ice in the polar areas has trapped it for millions of years and there is a good enough (negative) correlation between the isotope production and solar activity.

But to tell you the truth, I am not really happy this proxy measurement also. Carbon 14 (or Beryllium 10) production depends not only on the variation in solar wind (and the consequent variation in the geomagnetism) but also the amount of cosmic rays. The assumption seems to be that the cosmic rays come as a steady stream, to be swept away by the intensity of solar wind and hence less Carbon 14 production when there is high solar activity. But I should expect that the intensity of cosmic rays themselves is quasiperiodic. In other words, if there were no solar wind for millions of years, I should still expect to find some variation in the production of Carbon 14.

Unfortunately there are no easier methods to examine the impact of the particle inputs from the sun. But even then, it is a good enough indication of the connection.

I am quite amused to see that "cosmic rays may have affected climate in the past, but not the present". The effect of cosmic rays on the earth's climate is but minor, compared to that of the sun's particles. Yet they are willing to admit that it "may" have an impact. It agrees better with their belief system - the albedo effect of the clouds in trapping radiation. These guys are trapped in the scientific thought of the 1940's and 50's.

Endnote:

BBC correspondents act as the mouth pieces of "experts" and people in positions of authority. They do not investigate enough. The slogan "Putting News First" implies that they are allowed to put propaganda second. The war mongering that they have done in this century is a testimony to the truth of the corollary. Till recently, when they spoke about the international community, it meant Britain and the US of A. Now when they use the term it might include Australia and Germany.

A decade ago, I used to tell my students to watch BBC for the fairness and balance. But now I use it as a very good example of how propaganda can be done subtly, with all the verve of fairness and balance.