I find this picture of the ozone levels as of he 18th rather odd.
The South Pole has no ozone hole at all now. Here in the North, we have a giant ozone hole AND a giant ozone surplus.
I’m just not seeing how this can be ascribed either to a ‘well mixed gas’ like the CFCs are supposed to be; or to UV concentration (as last time I checked central Russia and central Canada had about the same seasonal changes in UV).
Yeah, I know, we could have some kinds of stratospheric ozone dumps into polar vortex formations… sure, that sounds plausible ;-)
As anomalies:
Ozone Anomalies 18 Jan 2012
And as absolute ozone levels:
Ozone Totals 18 Jan 2012
Maps from: http://exp-studies.tor.ec.gc.ca/e/ozone/Curr_allmap_g.htm
It will be interesting to see if there is a magnetic pole correlation at those spots. I did note was a solar flare 19 January:
Now if we get a big earthquake in North America in the next week or two, I’m going to remind everyone about the spot that formed over Japan just before their quake ;-)
Update
Adding polar views of the Anomalies. Total at the S. Pole is not much different from the anomaly map, so I’m not going to waste storage space on it. Total N. Hemisphere Ozone is first, then the two anomalies:
Ozone North Pole Total 18 Jan 2012
Ozone North Polar view 18 Jan 2012
Ozone South Polar View 18 Jan 2012
Musings from the Chiefio 
It is currently the middle of summer at the South Pole. There is no ozone hole in summer at either pole. It is currently winter at the North Pole, there is an ozone hole there because UV light is required to create ozone. There is no sunlight at the pole in winter.
There is a circumpolar jet that forms in winter that keeps the polar air sequestered from the rest of the atmosphere so the ozone can not mix from the lower latitudes.
In the spring the jet breaks down allowing the “ozone hole” or more accurately, the ozone depleted air to spill out to lower latitudes where it eventually mixes in and dissipates.
@George:
All well and good… except that N. Canada high ozone level without the UV to make it… (And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen charts of the S. Pole some years back with a negative anomaly in their summer – but I’m too lazy right now to go look them up ;-) so I won’t mention them… )
You don’t just have the circumpolar isolating jet break down and cause an ozone spike higher than the surrounding source… so I think there’s a bit more to the story… Perhaps the breakdown over Siberia with a ‘spin up’ over Canada sucking down more Stratospheric Ozone? At any rate, there’s a bit more going on here… I just can’t identify it… so you get to make it up ;-)
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About CO2 being a well mixed gas….
Remember the CO2 map you published from the Japanese satellite monitoring Co2 from space…
The map showed the industrialized world in green and the development countries in red, how well mixed is that?
I also rember to have read a report about Co2 measurements in tropical forests where Co2 levels were measured in the 600 ppm range.
Just saying…
Thank you, Dr. E.M. Smith, for again reminding us that we live as one tiny part of a dynamic, ever-changing, interconnected universe.
Videos that Jeff Condon made of cyclic changes in sea ice illustrate this:
That simple fact has been overlooked by leaders of the scientific community and the world leaders that hired them as fortune tellers.
Humility, awe and reverence are required to see the Great Reality that powers the cosmos that surrounds and sustains our very lives.
Pride and arrogance have blinded leaders of nations, religions and scientific organizations from seeing the Great Reality produced as the universe expands while rest mass is converted to kinetic energy:
1. The energy source is recorded in atomic rest masses
2. Einstein explained the conversion (E = mc^2) process
3. Mass => Energy, as water flows into the valley of the
4. “Cradle of the Nuclides” shown on the front cover*
5. Of a symposium Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg organized
_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_T._Seaborg
*http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Elements-Solar-System-Implications/dp/0306465620
I will be traveling for a few days and may not be in contact. However, I expect we will finally see some positive benefits coming from decades of data manipulation by world leaders and consensus scientists.
Thanks to brace souls like you, all is well.
@E.M.: There are some gadgets known as “Ozone generators” for home use….What do they use to produce it?…Well, that´s it!…unless it is forbidden by the “Church” to talk about it or even to mention it..
@Oliver:
2. Einstein explained the conversion (E = mc^2) process
Don´t you think a bit exaggerated to SQUARE the velocity of light?
I would prefer Max Planck´s equation:
E=h*ν, where v=C/λ
It doesn’t matter what units or proportionality constant are used:
Mass is stored energy:
Expansion of the universe is driven by Mass => Energy.
Contraction of the universe reverses, Energy => Mass.
“except that N. Canada high ozone level without the UV to make it”
That is lower latitude ozone that is getting pushed up there by the jet stream but is outside the polar jet. That will change from week to week as the positions of the jet changes. Sometimes the polar jet doesn’t exactly circle the center of the pole, sometimes it “slips” off to one side and that looks like what was happening on Jan 18. Or sometimes it can weaken and a blob of ozone depleted air can “spill” out like what looks like has happened in N. Europe here.
The vortex appears to be breaking up (it’s that time of year.)
It would be much clearer if you actually used a polar projection for the poles instead of what appears to be the Mercator projection of the entire planet.
The low pressure in the image is the vortex. Extreme cold enhances the destruction of ozone.
There’s a strong ozone concentration gradient between the mid latitudes and the poles in the winter – hence the high concentration of ozone in your image of the Northern hemisphere.
It’s the sun light which breaks up the ozone in the summer.
Compare the polar the projections for the ozone concentration residues for both poles during July 2011.
http://exp-studies.tor.ec.gc.ca/cgi-bin/selectMap?lang=e&type1=de&day1=19&month1=07&year1=2011&howmany1=1&interval1=1&intervalunit1=d&hem1=n&type2=de&day2=19&month2=07&year2=2011&howmany2=1&interval2=1&intervalunit2=d&hem2=s&mapsize=100ch
Little “pebbles” coming from “Solar Wind”, called “protons” are Hydrogen nucleii, which after engaging in a love affair with “Ozonic Girls” produce H2O kids…
Could you explain more about “the spot that formed over Japan just before their quake”?
FYI –
and
FYI, A few more links on Stratosphere data –
a. Main Page: NOAA Monitors the Stratosphere –
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/polar/polar.shtml
b. 2011 Zonal Mean Temps at 30mb –
c. 2012 Zonal Mean Temps at 30mb –
@Agile Aspect:
I’ve added polar projections for the same 18 Jan 2012 date. To me it still looks like that ‘hot spot’ over Canada is not explained by air flow.
@George:
OK, so how does the Jet Stream concentrate Ozone such that we have a 550 reading “hot spot” surrounded by 350 ‘normal’ in all directions?
It just looks very ‘unphysical’ to me as there isn’t a 550 count ‘source’ to move there (at least, not one that I’ve seen).
@Adolfo:
I’m in that “electric discharge” camp too. (Though I’m inclined to think that there is some more significant lightning involvement and less ions from space than I suspect you advocate.) In essence, I’m of the opinion that it’s more about weather and lightning (that may be driven by ‘space weather’) and much less about “UV and Refrigerants” than the standard story.
@mddwave:
There was a similar high ozone concentration noted just over Japan a few days before the large earthquake (Fukushima) that just happened a ways back. Probably just a coincidence, but who knows…
The spouse has just informed me I’m taking her to a movie “now”, so I’ve got to run… but a search for “chiefio Fukushima” will likely turn up the postings from then, one of which has the pointer to the Ozone graph….
Back in few hours ( it’s “Gone With The Wind”…)
E.M.Smith (20:19:41) :
“I’ve added polar projections for the same 18 Jan 2012 date. To me it still looks like that ‘hot spot’ over Canada is not explained by air flow.”
It’s a single image.
If you want to look at the air flow for both hot and cold spots, then you need to make a movie.
Or alternatively, create a second set of images for July 18 2011 and mentally interpolate between the two sets of images.
@Pascvaks (15:06:40) :
FYI, A few more links on Stratosphere data –
a. Main Page: NOAA Monitors the Stratosphere –
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/polar/polar.shtml
_________________
2012 graphs seem to indicate that “the whatever” that made all that ozone came from above, not below or elsewhere (be kind I’m guessing;-). See 2012 “Time vs Latitude Zonal Mean Temps”, moving from top down –
PS: To my untrained eyeball it looks like there is a “flash” of energy (or something) from vic. 45*N that seems to “heat” the airmass in question? Just guessing.
Sorry, the “flash” ain’t much of a FLASH and you need to look at the pic of 2011 for 01 mb –
Before we all get to involved with ozone holes, a little of a reminisce if I may. I reviewed a Doctoral Thesis some years ago that was supposed to look at the reasons for certain EM Survey anomalies.
This was in an basin environment that was chemically dominated by Aluminum. There was no mention of the importance of Aluminum in the entire dissertation; and so the conclusions were wrong, Aluminum does not react to EM like other stuff..
A similar situation appears to exist when the conversation turns to Ozone holes, since commentary first began on this thing nobody takes basic physics into account; basic physics explains why the Southern hole is larger than the “northern hole”.
Remember the three finger rule, that is how CRT’s work, and so does the ozone layer. Everything else is multivariate statistics and needs to be questioned, not deified.
Russ
Incidentally, see annular modes (or the longitudinal or meridional flows) at
http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/ao/introduction.html
for an introduction (and papers.)
Also, see Erl Happ’s website.
@Pascvaks:
Taking a look now…
@Russel Millard:
Near as I can tell, the “ozone hole” is primarily from the polar vortex excluding mixing with the area around the pole. Not much to do with any kind of chemistry at altitude. The ‘odd bits’ are the little extreme blobs of high and low that show up during the year. You don’t get blobs of high and low from mixing in medium nearby…
So I can only see two rational lines of reason.
1) The ozone came from an area not being measured (and I’m not sure where that would be that it was invisible).
2) The ozone concentration is not caused by gas chemistry, but by ion flows.
I tend to the #2 thesis as the rate at which these things change and the way they move and the ‘unphysicality’ of having a sudden HIGH concentration show up entirely surrounded by low would just require it to be another “magic gas”… But a nice electrical storm could easily load the place up with a sudden jump of ozone…
@Agile Aspect:
So when I make the movie, what will be your complaint then?
First I’ve got a map. You say ‘not good enough’ need a polar projection. (NOT a movie). I put the polar projection in. You say ‘not good enough’ need movie.
I say “make the damn movie yourself”. Sorry, but I don’t care for serial nagging…
What I see is spots of ozone concentration so high compared to anything around them that they could not be formed by any imaginable air flow pattern. The cause, IMHO, lies elsewhere. (Most likely electric discharge, IMHO again).
So if you want to show it’s via air flow, make the movie showing where it came from and post the link, but don’t nag me.
BTW, these ozone hot spots show up over the course of days, sometimes a single day, seemingly from nowhere. A sudden blob of ozone is not going to be due to a months long or even weeks long process like annular mode swaps.
This one the first signs of the magnetic reversal; the other is what our friend Vukcevic tells us indirectly:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MF.htm
@Adolfo:
As mentioned on one of the other threads, it might not be a reversal (that tend to only come every many tens of thousands of years) but an excursion (that happen FAR more often).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_excursion
We tend to think of the magnetic field as stable, and even the folks who think about reversals tend to think about it as stable for many thousands of years UNTIL it reverses.
The reality is that it is unstable, constantly changing, an subject to sporadic near-reversal events (sometimes only local in scale) far more often.
IMHO, we are clearly in one of them and are in the process of forming the multiple poles that characterized one; after that, the question becomes: When the 2 pole regime reforms, which way dominates?
I think this will also be driving a lot of our ozone and polar vortex dynamics into interesting patterns too…
@E.M.: BTW, have you wondered why “developed” countries are found where the magnetic field is stronger?, and now that the north magnetic pole it is not in a single place but divided in two zones: One at Hudson Bay and the other at Siberia/central Russia, development and power is beginning to migrate westwards?
Interesting “excursions” anyway. If we could be free as birds we would be migrating already, of course in the right path, in order not to be confounded like those whales in New Zealand or the dolphins in California…
This ozone hole is just stupid. The Carrington event would have smashed it. Funny how the “hole” started in the satellite era. Spray cans don’t effect it, volcanoes and the sun does…
http://cfc.geologist-1011.net/
http://www.brokencountry.com/index.php/2010/04/18/iceland-volcano-puts-more-cfcs-into-atmosphere-in-one-day-than-humans-do-in-100-years/
Also, the Iceland volcano had a very high CFC output. There are more detailed articles then this, but essentially the Iceland volcano released a high proportion CFC and then soon after the northern hole starts… interesting…
@Adolfo:
You are not claiming Argentina is undeveloped are you? ;-)
@Scarlette Pumpernickel:
Nice to see you back! ( Yes, I missed you… Thought maybe you got tired of visiting / providing suggestions…)
Oh Boy, that Iceland CFC thing looks like a fun read…