Report: Ozone Hole May Disappear by 2050

Sat May 20, 9:01 AM ET

TOKYO - The ozone hole over the Antarctic is likely to begin contracting in the future and may disappear by 2050 because of a reduction in the release of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-depleting gases, according to a team of Japanese scientists.
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The findings are based on a series of numerical simulations carried out by Eiji Akiyoshi of the National Institute for Environmental Studies, near Tokyo, using projected emissions of chlorofluorocarbons and other gases blamed for the ozone hole.

According to a report posted Friday on the institute's Web site, the hole is at its largest now but is likely to gradually start contracting around 2020 and disappear by around 2050.

The team's findings are in line with research by other scientists.

Some, however, have suggested the hole won't heal until much later because old refrigerators and air-conditioning systems — many in the United States and Canada — are still releasing ozone-killing chemicals. Both countries curbed those chemicals in newer products.

Satellites and ground stations have been monitoring the ozone hole over the South Pole since its discovery in the 1980s.

Chlorofluorocarbon levels in the earth's atmosphere have been declining since the mid-1990s due to international efforts to reduce emissions.

Good news, but your title's kind of backwards...

How will the hole repair itself? The idea that it will somehow disappear isn't clear to me.

It's just not logical IMO.

Example:

If I smoked 20 cigs a day for 10 years and then reduced that amount to 10 cigs per day for another ten years would my chances of lung cancer and other illnesses suddenly decrease?

Not fucking likely.

So why is the hole in the ozone gonna reduce? We're still using the shit that fucked it in the first place, just not as much.

Mother Earth heals herself.




(Or some shit like that.)

GD - that's the excuse regular people use. These fuckers are scientists.

Oh, I found his reason:


The findings are based on a series of numerical simulations carried out by Eiji Akiyoshi of the National Institute for Environmental Studies, near Tokyo, using projected emissions of chlorofluorocarbons and other gases blamed for the ozone hole.

I'd love to know more about this series of numerical simulations. It sounds fucking fantastic. Also like the fact he's using PROJECTED emissions.

Well, I project in the next hour I'm gonna scratch my nuts 10 times. Will my projection be correct? Who the fuck knows? At least you'll only have to wait and hour to find out.

With this scientist you gotta wait 44 years.

please report back, P

Didn't get to 10. Closer to 5 because I started to wonder "should I go outside and have a smoke or sit here and get to 10 just for fun"

I had the smoke. I'm trying to quit, too.

BTW, it does prove my point though. My projections were wrong.

The scientist's will be wrong too. Dude's gotta wait a long fucking time to find out though.

oh, did we try to feel good about the environment for a nanosecond?

SOR-RY PHAROAH!

[smilie=sarcastic.g:

Fuck the environment.

My ball scratching is more interesting than this scientist shit.

Oh, I found his reason:


The findings are based on a series of numerical simulations carried out by Eiji Akiyoshi of the National Institute for Environmental Studies, near Tokyo, using projected emissions of chlorofluorocarbons and other gases blamed for the ozone hole.

I'd love to know more about this series of numerical simulations. It sounds fucking fantastic. Also like the fact he's using PROJECTED emissions.
Generally speaking, they used a specialized supercomputer (specialized even by HPC standards) called the Earth Simulator:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Simulator

to project based off data obtained from ILAS II:

http://www-ilas2.nies.go.jp/en/project/

a satellite that gathers ozone data, in conjunction with weather balloons in Sweden, Alaska, Siberia, and other parts of the world (even weird southern regions like Australia :) ). The numerical methods involved are undoubtedly some sort of CCM model. It's unclear to me what the assumptions really are. They could simply be assuming that the conditions that lead to the ozone depletion that have been a constant for a long time remain constant, as opposed to assuming some sort of "rate of change" thing. I dunno. Here's the paper itself:

http://www.nies.go.jp/whatsnew/2006/20060519.pdf

but it's in Japanese, and AFAICT, there's no good English translation and even my attempts to render it in computer-xlated Engrish haven't yielded much info. If you want more information, contact hakiyoshi@nies.go.jp.


Well, I project in the next hour I'm gonna scratch my nuts 10 times. Will my projection be correct? Who the fuck knows?
I'm sure that makes for fascinating research. :)


At least you'll only have to wait and hour to find out.

With this scientist you gotta wait 44 years.
You generally have to wait a couple decades, + or -, for a child to be an adult. It's so unpredictable! One day, they just wake up and bam, they went from clutching their woobie sucking their thumb in their crib to asking you for a car, and you never saw it coming.

The simple explanation is that the ozone layer just went swimming in Tahoe's pool, thus...

And that post right there is why Uncle Mxy is the shit.

Fucking awesome!

good news.....hope they're right. for some reason, i've been worried about the state of our environment. probably because of all the media attention lately with issues like gas prices, emissions, and earth-friendly cars. regardless, i hope they're correct.