[Ludi]

People here grow sorghum in the warm months, oats in the cooler months. This rotation needs a legume - black eyed peas/cowpeas in summer, favas in winter should work. You might try that.

[cudabachi]

People here grow sorghum in the warm months, oats in the cooler months. This rotation needs a legume - black eyed peas/cowpeas in summer, favas in winter should work. You might try that.

I've grown beans before though to be honest with you, I can still buy urea and N2 fertilizer at reasonable enough prices that it will probably be a while before I do the beans again. With a normal "winter", I could probably get in both a crop of sorghum and a crop of amaranth cut for sileage.

[Graeme]

The Ozone Hole Is Mending. Now for the ‘But.’

That the hole in Earth’s ozone layer is slowly mending is considered a big victory for environmental policy makers. But in a new report, scientists say there is a downside: its repair may contribute to global warming.

It turns out that the hole led to the formation of moist, brighter-than-usual clouds that shielded the Antarctic region from the warming induced by greenhouse gas emissions over the last two decades, scientists write in Wednesday’s issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

“The recovery of the hole will reverse that,” said Ken Carslaw, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Leeds and a co-author of the paper. “Essentially, it will accelerate warming in certain parts of the Southern Hemisphere.”

nytimes

[Rod_Cloutier]

It would seem that the good news that the ozone hole is gradually starting to heal has been missed by the doom and gloom world press. The last year the ozone hole actually shrank rather than expanded, good news to be sure, it is instead presented as a social ill:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 012210.php

That the healing ozone will increase the greenhouse effect over Antarctica and alter wind patterns. Rather than saying, 'Wind patterns will gradually return to normal after being perverted by CFC's for 3 decades'.

It seems no news is good news. Also it seems like our beloved peakoil.com site has recently become deepwaterhorizon.com instead. Where are all the moderators who were furious when, in 2005, this site briefly became Katrina.com??

I'd like to see more good news posted on the site, rather than perpetual doom.

[americandream]

I think you miss the point with the concern of those who see our way of life as a folly (call it doom if you will).

The ozone hole is just one of a litany of problems with capitalism. Add them all up and they sound like doom just as the collective warnings of the finanacial naysayers at the height of the credit bubble sounded like doom.

Today who in their right mind would scoff at those naysayers, motivated as they were by a whole range of beliefs from the Austrian School to Marxist.

There are certain worldviews which are at complete odds with those who believe in BAU. Can YOU handle that?

PS: There is a whole army of information makers deployed to feed us with "feel good" BAU data. This site is one of a minority bucking that trend. This site conveys those other world views in contrast to the multitude of status quoers that encircle it.

See where I'm going with this?

It would seem that the good news that the ozone hole is gradually starting to heal has been missed by the doom and gloom world press. The last year the ozone hole actually shrank rather than expanded, good news to be sure, it is instead presented as a social ill:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 012210.php

That the healing ozone will increase the greenhouse effect over Antarctica and alter wind patterns. Rather than saying, 'Wind patterns will gradually return to normal after being perverted by CFC's for 3 decades'.

It seems no news is good news. Also it seems like our beloved peakoil.com site has recently become deepwaterhorizon.com instead. Where are all the moderators who were furious when, in 2005, this site briefly became Katrina.com??

I'd like to see more good news posted on the site, rather than perpetual doom.

[Rod_Cloutier]

I see where your going. I'm not BAU idealist but there is always some good enviromental news out there, like this one:

http://www.h2bidblog.com/clean-water-ef ... acid-rain/

Forests in acid rain devastated regions in Northwestern America are showing the first signs of a gradual recovery. Also, new clean coal technologies are reducing acid rain in North America.

(Although China is about to destroy itself by repeating our mistakes with coal power on a much more massive scale than anything we've done in America), but that's another story--

[americandream]

Western capitalists promised Deng massive investment and Western style development provided he abandoned Maoist collectivisation, a collectivisation which, despite all its think big problems, still offered a sufficiently small carbon footprint for one billion. Deng acquiesced (as he had been instructed to by Mao who was none other than a petty nationalist who used the Soviets to piggy back China onto the world stage). The rest is history. These same interests worked upon Soviet collectivism and today we have another emerging house of horrendous excess.

Capitalism is incapable of co-existing wioth moderation, Marxist or environmental. It's very function is profit derived out of obsolescence. You want a green and closed loop of human endeavour, it has to be collectivised and devoid of any private ownership, the basis of obsolescence. Anything less is window dressing.

PS: Think of environmental dysfunction as a function of an open system of human endeavour such as capitalism, where inputs of natural resources largely escape back into the environment as a consequence of profit contrived obsolescence, a wants based mode of exchange. You can enclose aspects of capitalist production within a closed loop without compromising the profit profile of that business or sector but the vast bulk of sectoral capitalism is premised on premature and brought forward obsolescence, much of which is the basis for front end as well as back end waste.

I see where your going. I'm not BAU idealist but there is always some good enviromental news out there, like this one:

http://www.h2bidblog.com/clean-water-ef ... acid-rain/

Forests in acid rain devastated regions in Northwestern America are showing the first signs of a gradual recovery. Also, new clean coal technologies are reducing acid rain in North America.

(Although China is about to destroy itself by repeating our mistakes with coal power on a much more massive scale than anything we've done in America), but that's another story--

[M_B_S]

Arctic ozone Stratospheric ozone loss in the Arctic has this year reached a level never before recorded . Observations made since the beginning of the Arctic winter show that 40% of ozone molecules have been destroyed over the Arctic. The highest ozone loss previously measured was 30%, in 2005. Scientists with the World Meteorological Organization and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research released the figures on 5 April at the general assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna. See go.nature.com/dxmamu for more.

These are very bad news for Eurasia and North America!
A big ozone hole in in the Northern Hemisphere

If you feel the sun is burning hotter this summer, you may be correct!
M_B_S

[ritter]

So... how does methane interact with ozone?

[Sys1]

A little research on the web :
In the troposphere (altitude 8 to 15km), methane produces O3.
In stratosphere(20 to 40km), where Ozone layer actually is, it destroys it. I don't know if it's directly linked to methane release from permafrost, arctic or methane chlarate, but I've heard about a hole in ozone layer something like 20 years ago, a time when exponential release of CH4 wasn't still a problem. It was more about CFC from aerosol. We were also told that CFC need something like 70 years to reach ozone layer, meaning that today's problems could come from CFC released decades ago and not necessary CH4. It could also be both.

[ritter]

In stratosphere(20 to 40km), where Ozone layer actually is, it destroys it. I don't know if it's directly linked to methane release from permafrost, arctic or methane chlarate...

So it could be another one of those pesky dead canaries when viewed in light of the temperature anomalies in the arctic and Sharkova's work. Poop.

[dorlomin]

The drastic loss of ozone is a result of unusually strong winds, known as the polar vortex, which secluded the atmospheric mass over the North Pole and ensured that it did not mix with air in the mid-latitudes. As a result, low temperatures such as take place every winter in the southern hemisphere over the Antarctic occurred in the Arctic region, increasing the depletion of ozone particles.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/ ... 0520110407

[ritter]

Cool beans, dor. There are times I just love being wrong!

[sjn]

The drastic loss of ozone is a result of unusually strong winds, known as the polar vortex, which secluded the atmospheric mass over the North Pole and ensured that it did not mix with air in the mid-latitudes. As a result, low temperatures such as take place every winter in the southern hemisphere over the Antarctic occurred in the Arctic region, increasing the depletion of ozone particles.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/ ... 0520110407

How definitive is this explanation? It's not clear to me how the formation of a polar vortex in and of itself destroys O3, and how does it reconcile with the negative NAO and actual above average Arctic temperatures? I wouldn't be so quick to write off the CH4.

[dorlomin]

How definitive is this explanation? It's not clear to me how the formation of a polar vortex in and of itself destroys O3, and how does it reconcile with the negative NAO and actual above average Arctic temperatures? I wouldn't be so quick to write off the CH4.

The theory that CFCs could destroy O3 goes back to the early 70s, but in the mid 80s when the huge hole in the Antarctic was discovered the whole mechanism was relooked at. Susan Solomon produced the theory that at very cold temperatures the destruction of ozone is accelerated. This is now the accepted theory. The explanation given above is that the winds make it more difficult for bodies of warm air to enter the Arctic and so the air at very high altitudes was unusually cold allowing more ozone destruction than usual.

I cant see anything theoretically wrong with it, but I am most certainly not an atmospheric chemist specialising in these chemicals. It does chime with what is plausable.

From memory methane is far more prevelant over tropical wetlands than any other biome, so if there was a possible methane effect on ozone it would be expected to show up there.

I am sure there will be others willing to share their opinions with vigour.

[Cid_Yama]

Here is the EGU press conference video

Press Conference 2 Polar Ozone – What's going on in the Arctic? by EGU2011

Assigning causality between the polar vortex and cold stratospheric temperatures is simplistic and incorrect.

Darkness over the pole in winter lowers the stratospheric temperatures. The colder stratospheric temperatures initiate the formation of the polar vortex in the upper stratosphere which then extends lower into the atmosphere as it forms throughout the winter. The vortex can then reinforce colder temperatures by isolating the air mass.

This does not explain the progressively colder stratospheric temperatures. This must be attributed to the increase in greenhouse gasses which insulate the stratosphere from radiating heat from the surface, increasing the differential at the tropopause.

Water vapor in the colder stratosphere below -70 C forms polar stratospheric clouds which through chemical reactions degrade the ozone layer.

The primary way that water vapor enters the stratosphere is through the breakdown of methane in the stratosphere into water vapor and CO2.

The polar vortex enhances the transport of methane into the stratosphere.

Transport of methane in the stratosphere associated with the breakdown of the Antarctic polar vortex

High concentrations of methane observed inside the vortex show mixing of lower-latitude air into the vortex. An RDF calculation confirms the behavior of methane transport into the vortex.

link

[kiwichick]

umm



this doesn't sound good chaps

[kiwichick]

does this have an effect on sea ice melt or permafrost ?

[M_B_S]

does this have an effect on sea ice melt or permafrost ?

Yes, it cannot be ruled out because more energy (UVA ~ UVB) hits the earth or the ocean surface.

High UV radiation has a destructive effect on life for example phytoplankton and zooplancton in the arctic ocean.

Link
http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/conten ... 5.abstract
http://plankt.oxfordjournals.org/conten ... 5.full.pdf
http://www.tesisenxarxa.net/TESIS_UIB/A ... lc1de1.pdf

M_B_S

[dorlomin]

If you google ‘methane’ and ‘polar vortex’, guess whats the first link that comes up.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=polar+ ... =firefox-a
Ah, some people are such a laugh.
Anyway the paper is about the Southern Hemisphere. Who knows, perhaps the same mechanisms apply to the Arctic, but perhaps not. What we do know is Cid is clueless about this other than a bit of googling and simply doing his usual ululations of joy over the prospect of millions dying. Hopefully though him or one of his followers will treat us to a keyboard chewing response.
We may even be lucky enough for the response to be about the right half of the earth.