Big Winter for Arctic Ozone Hole
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on October 4th, 2011 4:44 am by HL
Big Winter for Arctic Ozone Hole
Unusual weather ripped a sizable hole in the ozone layer above the Arctic last winter, exposing people in northern Russia, parts of Greenland and Norway to high levels of UV radiation. Human activity did not cause the hole’s sudden appearance, scientists said in a report released Monday. But the abnormal weather did enable ozone-eating chemicals already present in the atmosphere to cause the damage. Exposure to high levels of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation can cause skin cancer and cataracts. The rift in the ozone layer is an annual event, but this one was the largest on record in the Northern Hemisphere, and scientists say the trend of expansion could continue. —ARK The Guardian: During extreme events, up to 70% of the ozone layer can be destroyed, before it recovers months later. The hole above the Arctic was always much smaller – until March this year, when a combination of powerful wind patterns and intense cold temperatures high up in the atmosphere created the right conditions for already-present, ozone-eating chlorine chemicals to damage the layer. … Normally, atmospheric conditions high above the Arctic do not trigger a large-scale plunge in ozone levels. But during the 2010/11 winter, a high-altitude wind pattern called the polar vortex was unusually strong, leading to very cold conditions in the stratosphere that also lasted for several months. This created the right conditions for the ozone-destroying forms of chlorine to slash ozone levels over a long period. Read more
Unusual weather ripped a sizable hole in the ozone layer above the Arctic last winter, exposing people in northern Russia, parts of Greenland and Norway to high levels of UV radiation. Human activity did not cause the hole’s sudden appearance, scientists said in a report released Monday. But the abnormal weather did enable ozone-eating chemicals already present in the atmosphere to cause the damage.
Exposure to high levels of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation can cause skin cancer and cataracts. The rift in the ozone layer is an annual event, but this one was the largest on record in the Northern Hemisphere, and scientists say the trend of expansion could continue. —ARK
The Guardian:
During extreme events, up to 70% of the ozone layer can be destroyed, before it recovers months later. The hole above the Arctic was always much smaller – until March this year, when a combination of powerful wind patterns and intense cold temperatures high up in the atmosphere created the right conditions for already-present, ozone-eating chlorine chemicals to damage the layer.
… Normally, atmospheric conditions high above the Arctic do not trigger a large-scale plunge in ozone levels. But during the 2010/11 winter, a high-altitude wind pattern called the polar vortex was unusually strong, leading to very cold conditions in the stratosphere that also lasted for several months. This created the right conditions for the ozone-destroying forms of chlorine to slash ozone levels over a long period.
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Koch Industries Is Awash in Money and Misdeeds
Contracts won with bribes, falsified safety and emissions reports, price fixing, illegal dealings with Iran and stolen oil. Bloomberg has compiled a detailed litany of loosely related bad behaviors by the managers of Koch Industries and its subsidiary companies. For Charles and David Koch, who turned their father’s modest oil company into a roughly $100 billion a year industrial and financial empire spanning more than 50 countries, it is government regulation of these types of activities—not the practices themselves—that harms American businesses, and presumably, the rest of society. —ARK Bloomberg: For six decades around the world, Koch Industries has blazed a path to riches—in part, by making illicit payments to win contracts, trading with a terrorist state, fixing prices, neglecting safety and ignoring environmental regulations. At the same time, Charles and David Koch have promoted a form of government that interferes less with company actions. “My overall concept is to minimize the role of government and to maximize the role of the private economy and maximize personal freedoms,” David Koch told the National Journal in May 1992. Read more
Contracts won with bribes, falsified safety and emissions reports, price fixing, illegal dealings with Iran and stolen oil. Bloomberg has compiled a detailed litany of loosely related bad behaviors by the managers of Koch Industries and its subsidiary companies.
For Charles and David Koch, who turned their father’s modest oil company into a roughly $100 billion a year industrial and financial empire spanning more than 50 countries, it is government regulation of these types of activities—not the practices themselves—that harms American businesses, and presumably, the rest of society. —ARK
Bloomberg:
For six decades around the world, Koch Industries has blazed a path to riches—in part, by making illicit payments to win contracts, trading with a terrorist state, fixing prices, neglecting safety and ignoring environmental regulations. At the same time, Charles and David Koch have promoted a form of government that interferes less with company actions.
“My overall concept is to minimize the role of government and to maximize the role of the private economy and maximize personal freedoms,” David Koch told the National Journal in May 1992.
Related Entries
- September 28, 2011 The Men We Trusted to Lead Us
- September 28, 2011 Supreme Court to Review Health Care Law