Greenhouse Gases Are Changing the Dynamics of the Atmosphere
According to new research from NASA scientists and John Hopkins University, greenhouse gases are changing the dynamics of the atmosphere relative to the ozone layer. Remember when depleting the ozone layer was an issue? Aerosol cans and refrigerants were responsible and until the ingredients in these products were changed consumers switched to pump spray bottles that are still around today and a good idea.
According to the article by ENS on sundancechannel.com, “Greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere as high as 6 miles up, but it cools the upper stratosphere from 18 to 31 miles up. This cooling slows the chemical reactions that deplete ozone in the upper stratosphere and allows natural ozone production there to outpace destruction by refrigerants and other ozone depleters.” But scientists found “accumulation of greenhouse gases also changes the circulation of stratospheric air masses from the tropics to the poles.” Again, global warming isn’t just about one process. Over and over again, global warming affects multiple events in the atmosphere depending on location.
Scientists fear the middle latitudes will over-recover ozone to even greater concentrations than before when it posed a real problem, while in the tropics, stratospheric circulation changes could prevent the ozone layer from recovering at all.
Read more:
http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2009/04/climate-change-complicates-ozone-recovery/
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Help me here…..where’s the good news…all I hear about every day is that global warming is getting worse and worse.
Some facts…in the middle of last year china shut down manyof its “dirty” manufacturing plants for the olympics….due to lack of business most have remained closed to this day. Many of the business that remained opened have been ramped down due to slower business. this is true all over the world. we have shut steel mills and car plants in the u.s. the power plants, which by most accounts are the number one source of green house gases, are producing less and less energy. we are driving few car miles and flying less and less…all the “green” efforts we’ve made in the recent years….given all this reduced activity WHERE”S THE PROGRESS? there simply has to be some. My thought is your side simply wants to yell “fire” as it concerns global warming. For the economic meltdown and the accompaning huge slow down in acivity to have occured with no reducing in green house gases emitted thereby reducing “global warming” to have not occured is in a word curious. wouldn’t you agree?
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Your asking, “Where’s the progress?” now, when you are one of many naysayers that didn’t believe in global warming, that man wasn’t affecting anything, that because we in Michigan are experiencing colder winters that it can’t be global warming, and that God makes all things happen. Well, not my God. He gave the Earth to us, along with free will and stepped back. Unless you suggest He’s some sort of puppeteer or like the Greek gods ready to zap us at every move.
Like many, you jumped on the bandwagon against global warming. If you would have listened when Al Gore first broached the subject, you would have heard that if we fail to act within ten years it will be too late and even if we do act immediately climate change will become more and more severe until 2030 before it tapers off. That was almost 4 years ago and you’re still arguing about it and that argument is part of the problem. The outlook is even bleaker now because the first predictions have already been surpassed. Reversing global warming is no different than the economic recovery where the last thing to recover will be jobs. It’s a backlash effect.
You’re also asking for instant gratification. We slow down on emissions for a few months and you expect a miracle of a result when many, many people have done absolutely nothing in their lives to help the effort yet. The latest models for action = results are here:
http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/21/hadley-study-warns-of-catastrophic-5%C2%B0c-warming-by-2100-on-current-emissions-path/
I’m about to blog about a precedent where man did indeed cause a mighty big climate disaster in this country and not that long ago. I caught the story on the History Channel about the Great Dustbowl of the 30’s. Science took a look at that, and found man created that problem and like much of what’s happening now it was a domino effect that made the drought last 10 years longer than it should have. Stay tuned because the Great Dustbowl is a good example of what our stupidity and greed accomplished.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Your response is emotionally based and really laughable……
nothing has been proven and this whole thing is stupid.
you said “i didn’t listen” when al gore first mentioned this 4 years ago….to be correct he mentioned it much longer ago then that. go read his book “earth in the balance.” that wasn’t written four years ago! same “the earth is falling” conclusions…
the earth has cooled for the last seven years. It warmed a degree or so over 100 years. (have you ever done research on how and where all those measurement over 100 years were taken? Hardly scientific)
April 24th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
My response is from looking over what you blogged here before. What difference does it make that Al Gore spoke about global warming before “An Inconvenient Truth?” Four years-2 years, so what? I think it’s an exaggeration to say he preaches “the earth is falling” when we can turn things around. Doomsday means we can do nothing about our situation. You seem to be preaching that.
And the same tired cooling argument is actually relative to global warming. I’ve explained the cooling phenomena over and over. I even had an editorial in the Monroe News about it. Why doesn’t ClimateDepot.com explain it? Oh that’s right, it’s scientific.
Here it is again. It’s not that hard to follow:
Global Cooling is Global Warming
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/?p=240#comments.
Global warming is still the correct terminology for the cooling and snow many places are experiencing. Scientists that specialize in warming ocean waters, wind currents, gulf streams, etc., are just now coming together as a group to examine the alarming collective effects of global warming.
Global cooling is taking place because the Meridional Overturning Circulation or MOC is slowing. It’s not exactly the same as the Gulf Stream but I’m calling it that, so you can understand more easily. The only reason Great Britain enjoys a moderate climate is because of the Gulf Stream, which acts like a giant conveyor carrying warm surface ocean water to Britain where salinity forces it down to cool as it returns toward us. Global warming hasn’t just melted glaciers, it has also melted snow and ice in Siberia and other places where “freshwater” glutted rivers that dump into the ocean reducing salinity, and so the Gulf Stream is slowing as salinity decreases.
In the past when the Gulf Stream stopped, there was like an instantaneous ice age in that region. If it happens again, Britain will freeze over without proper warning. Power lines will snap, snow will increase and many will perish. This will continue throughout the northern hemisphere, while the tropics suffer drought and excessive heat. This has happened before during increase in overall temperature or global warming. It’s not that global warming hasn’t happened before. It has not happened at the rate of speed it progresses now. This escalation is the reason scientists started looking at the effects of human pollution on environment in the first place and found results we don’t want to hear.
I’ve watched the Discovery, Science, and Nat Geo Channels do scientific research using ice cores deep within glaciers. The cores hold air bubbles and other elements from more than 100 years ago that pretty much show what was in the atmosphere and water. I don’t think it would be that hard to get a good climate model over the past 100 years. Read about the Great Dustbowl and tell me man doesn’t affect climate.