[HN Gopher] The ozone hole above Antarctica has grown to three t...
___________________________________________________________________
The ozone hole above Antarctica has grown to three times the size
of Brazil
Author : saikatsg
Score : 104 points
Date : 2023-10-06 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.space.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.space.com)
| ameerhamza8796 wrote:
| [dead]
| doitLP wrote:
| Clickbait:
|
| > Yet despite experiencing large seasonal growth this year, the
| ozone hole is still decreasing in size overall. "Based on the
| Montreal Protocol and the decrease of anthropogenic ozone-
| depleting substances, scientists currently predict that the
| global ozone layer will reach its normal state again by around
| 2050," said Claus Zehner, ESA's mission manager for Copernicus
| Sentinel-5P.
| zackees wrote:
| [dead]
| smegsicle wrote:
| [flagged]
| neves wrote:
| If you don't know: Brazil is bigger than mainland USA.
|
| USA is bigger due to Alaska.
| [deleted]
| diggan wrote:
| Couldn't the US also be bigger because of the 10 states most to
| the east or whatever? Why specifically Alaska?
| sp332 wrote:
| Because it's way out there and hard to visualize as part of
| the total area.
| lattalayta wrote:
| And it's huge! https://www.royalalaskanmovers.com/how-big-
| is-alaska-compari...
| k_roy wrote:
| and the Mercator projection is horrible.
| dmoy wrote:
| Alaska is like ~20% of the entire US area. It's the single
| largest state, which when removed, drops US from >1 million
| km^2 bigger than Brazil to 500k km^2 smaller than Brazil.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Even Americans don't realize just how freakin' huge Alaska
| is.
|
| https://www.alaska.org/how-big-is-alaska
| borbulon wrote:
| Because it's the largest state by far, so it's easier to do
| the math on. The next 3 biggest states put together don't add
| up to the size of Alaska. Alaska's land dedicated to national
| parks alone is bigger than the entire size of the land in
| each of the 23 of the 49 remaining states.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| In addition to other reasons, Alaska was accepted as a state
| either last or second-last -- I remember in the same year as
| Hawaii but I don't know if one was officially accepted before
| the other. I suspect that history would cause people in older
| generations to think of Alaska when there's a state to
| arbitrarily drop from some calculation and younger
| generations would mimic that tendency.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Alaska has been part of the US since just after the Civil
| War. It wasn't a _state_ , but it was a recognized part of
| the US.
| doakes wrote:
| Second to last: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._
| states_by_date_of...
| Terr_ wrote:
| For a more hands-on demonstration, I like this little site
| which lets you move/rotate [0] and superimpose nation
| boundaries, while adjusting the shape to account for 2D map
| projections.
|
| https://www.thetruesize.com
|
| [0] Rotation of the last-touched country outline is possible by
| dragging around the "N" compass in the lower-left.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| That's really fun and helps put the globes distortion into
| perspective. Thanks!
| tjpnz wrote:
| I thought we dealt with this?
| doitLP wrote:
| > Yet despite experiencing large seasonal growth this year, the
| ozone hole is still decreasing in size overall. "Based on the
| Montreal Protocol and the decrease of anthropogenic ozone-
| depleting substances, scientists currently predict that the
| global ozone layer will reach its normal state again by around
| 2050," said Claus Zehner, ESA's mission manager for Copernicus
| Sentinel-5P.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Shall we build ozone factories at McMurdo and Tierra Del Fuego?
| :-D
| phkahler wrote:
| What a stupid headline. I have no idea how many times the size of
| Brazil is normal. Is this 3x as large? Is it 10 percent larger?
| The whole measure is completely meaningless.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Apparently it is common in US publications to use such
| comparisons instead of proper measurements.
| irrational wrote:
| Even a proper measurement wouldn't tell me anything. Is 1500
| kilometers across big or small for this kind of thing? I have
| no idea.
| tuatoru wrote:
| So what is that in Manhattan Islands?
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| That's part of the clickbait-ness. "Surely the actual article
| uses real numbers, let me click and see..."
|
| Also, this is the problem with current (what gets passed off
| as) journalism. The quality of the reporting is replaced with
| creativity, hyperbole, etc. It's hard to take the profession
| seriously when it doesn't follow its own rules, doesn't bother
| to police itself, etc.
| effnorwood wrote:
| [dead]
| standardUser wrote:
| The Montreal Protocol has been a massive success and was even
| strongly supported by Reagan (possibly due to his own skin cancer
| scare, according to one article). Though I'm _highly_ skeptical
| it could make it through today 's political system in the US.
| flashback2199 wrote:
| Nah I think it could pass today. What set it apart was there
| was an equivalent cost chemical to switch to. It would be kind
| of like if there were a different liquid hydrocarbon than
| gasoline that cost the same, doesn't emit CO2, and only took
| minor tweaks to the engine design to switch to.
| standardUser wrote:
| If it was a brand new concern and Democrats made it an issue
| you don't think Republicans would make it a wedge issue? Like
| they do with [name ANY issue]. I think the modern GOP base
| would demand it. I honestly cannot conceive of them passing
| up the chance to launch an attack these days, given even the
| smallest opening.
| blangk wrote:
| My political candidate does things in good faith, but the
| opposing political candidate only ever does things in bad
| faith. Right guys!?
| jeremyjh wrote:
| Yet I see the "do your own research!" crowd now reference the
| ozone hole as another example when a cabal of evil scientists
| came up with a cash grab that the mainstream media terrified
| everyone with for no reason, and "now no one even talks about
| it!".
| flashback2199 wrote:
| Yeah, there are a lot of crazies, but there are also a lot
| of vacation property owners, tennis players, golfers, etc.
| and saying, truthfully, that no one will be able to do
| anything outside again, even with sunscreen, nobody will
| come rent your properties in Florida to go to the beach
| again, and the solution doesn't cost anything, it should
| pass.
| [deleted]
| mcpackieh wrote:
| How does the Big Hat lobby fit into this?
| jonathankoren wrote:
| And yet those same people out right deny that climate
| change, and its accompanying sea level rise, is a myth.
| You'd think the wealthy property owners and governor of a
| state where it's most valuable economic sectors are on
| the coast and a mere 10 feet or less above sea level
| would behave more rationally about the preventable danger
| that has been predicted for decades, but alas.
|
| I guess they're banking on selling their five million
| dollar beach home to Aquaman.
|
| https://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/3047/
| welon wrote:
| [dead]
| btilly wrote:
| That's silly, the ozone hole goes from high latitudes to
| low, and was bigger in the southern hemisphere. Therefore
| was going to affect Florida well after it affected most
| other places.
|
| OTOH Florida is full of people who deny global warming.
| Even though Florida actually is ground zero for coral
| bleaching, increased strength of hurricanes, and sea
| level rise.
|
| People act on what they connect with for whatever
| combination of reasons. This seldom matches what they
| logically SHOULD connect with.
| latchkey wrote:
| Was it?
|
| "Two additional regions of Asia were sources of banned ozone-
| destroying chemicals"
|
| https://research.noaa.gov/2022/03/09/two-additional-regions-...
| aperson_hello wrote:
| Yes, because despite there being setbacks, the ozone layer is
| still healing! The hole is getting smaller
| WalterBright wrote:
| > was even strongly supported by Reagan
|
| Since everything Reagan did was wrong... :-/
| ChrisNorstrom wrote:
| Just putting this here for a future "told you so".
|
| It's not "man made climate change", it's the upcoming Sun
| micronova which will cause a pole shift in 15 to 30 years. It
| happens every certain number of tens of thousands of years on
| your planet. You should have felt the sun "feel different" over
| the last few years. It's getting stronger and it's slowly
| decreasing your protective magnetic field.
|
| In a few decades you'll be hit with catestrophic floods, tectonic
| plate movement, earthquakes, and blasted with solar radiation.
| [deleted]
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| Man-made climate change is definitely happening: carbon dioxide
| is a greenhouse gas (we have known this since the 1880s) and we
| are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in very large
| amounts. Both of these are indisputable.
|
| If the poles are reversing, that does not negate man-made
| climate change. It does the opposite: it makes man-made climate
| change that much worse. It makes it _even more_ important that
| we reduce atmospheric carbon, and it gives us a much shorter
| timeline to do it in.
| skymast wrote:
| [dead]
| megamike wrote:
| It's one of the biggest ozone holes on record -- but not
| necessarily cause for alarm. right nothing to look at here just
| carry on
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| If you don't live in the Southern Hemisphere, you'll be fine.
|
| And if you do, I recommend Neutrogena SPF 50+ sports spray.
| 6DM wrote:
| Lower in the article explains why:
|
| > Yet despite experiencing large seasonal growth this year, the
| ozone hole is still decreasing in size overall. "Based on the
| Montreal Protocol and the decrease of anthropogenic ozone-
| depleting substances, scientists currently predict that the
| global ozone layer will reach its normal state again by around
| 2050," said Claus Zehner, ESA's mission manager for Copernicus
| Sentinel-5P.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| So if we can survive the next thirty years, we're good. I can
| barely look forward to the next five.
|
| Edit: Woah. Humor doesn't translate well on this site doesn't
| it?
|
| I'm not saying the world is ending. I'm just saying with the
| next five years it looks bloody bleak, at least for me,
| turning 40 doesn't look fun.
|
| With wars, environmental mess going on; the world looks very
| dystopian to the vision where it could be utopian in thirty
| years. The good always triumphs, you just have to fight past
| the evil first and that could happen.
| Alupis wrote:
| This sort of ridiculous, silly rhetoric needs to end. It's
| not just unproductive, it's counter-productive.
|
| _" ThE wOrLd Is EnDiNg!"_ is such a tired line, used by
| religious fanatics since the beginning of time. Modern-day
| climate activism has indeed become it's own sort of
| religion, complete with the same sort of doom-and-gloom
| "repent now before it's too late" rhetoric and increasingly
| not based on facts or science but instead emotional ploys,
| fearmongering, and faith based arguments.
|
| No.. the world isn't ending tomorrow, within 5 years, or
| even in the next few decades. Yes, we should do better to
| protect the environment.
|
| We just don't need the sensationalism - it turns people off
| and away from all the silliness.
| sillywalk wrote:
| The people saying we're close to tipping points are
| scientists, with research papers, not religious nuts.
| alex_lav wrote:
| > No.. the world isn't ending tomorrow, within 5 years,
| or even in the next few decades.
|
| Ah yes, not ending "in the next few decades." What a
| reassurance.
| bawolff wrote:
| Especially because we are talking about the ozone layer
| not climate change.
|
| The ozone layer is in the process of being fixed. It is
| not going to kill us (anymore than the increased cancer
| has in the past). Yes it would be bad if we started
| releasing CFCs again, but the status quo on this one is
| good. Literally one of the best success stories of
| environmentalism.
|
| The biggest problem with envirinmentalists is there is a
| lunatic fringe who has no idea what they are talking
| about spout non-sense, this makes the real issues look
| like BS too even when they are not.
| postmodest wrote:
| If you are over, say, 25, then you know that the last 10
| years have been _exceptional_ years for our climate, and
| that the time for normal non-sensational warnings was 40
| years ago or 50 years ago.
|
| Look at a graph of CO2 emissions and you realize that we
| are in a place where what was alarming in the 80's was
| the result of only _half_ of the CO2 pumped into the
| atmosphere since 1900 (
| https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions )
|
| And now we are using energy to cover for the effects of
| using energy a decade ago.
|
| Things are worse and they will reach the point over the
| next five or ten years that heat events and cold events
| will become more deadly for more people and the fact that
| you're tired of hearing about it isn't the problem.
|
| The problem is that people haven't been taking the danger
| seriously and now it's an immanent and deadly danger.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "The problem is that people haven't been taking the
| danger seriously and now it's an immanent and deadly
| danger."
|
| Taking something serious, is something very different
| from a doomsday cult.
| ToDougie wrote:
| The climate over the last 10 years haven't felt or been
| exceptional. The news has certainly been sensational.
| sofixa wrote:
| Are you kidding? How many temperature records were
| broken? How many "once in a 100 years events" happened?
| Texas had two such winter storms in less than 10 years.
| There have been record droughts in France, and then
| record rainfalls. An unprecedented heat dome in the
| Pacific Northwest. Vast areas in the Middle East and
| South Asia, and hell the US too, are approaching
| unliveable wet bulbs temperatures in the summer.
|
| If that isn't exceptional to you, what would be?
| phero_cnstrcts wrote:
| Happens all the time. Media wants you to believe
| otherwise so the rich can get richer and have more
| control.
| sofixa wrote:
| Which exactly part happens all the time? Each year
| setting temperature records? "Once in a lifetime" climate
| disasters? Wildfires getting worse and worse?
|
| On the wet bulb temperature front, it's literally
| unprecedented and quite impactful. Millions of people
| would be unable to survive where they currently live and
| would need to move.
| netsharc wrote:
| Isn't amazing how actual people can put their heads in
| sand and say "Oh it's just media conspiracy and lies to
| fuck over us poor people!" about anything they don't
| like.
|
| Added irony that the person is a commenter on HN, who is
| probably the top 10% of the richest people in the world.
| ben_w wrote:
| Monday this week, it was 24degC here, a full 9degC above
| the seasonal average for Berlin for the beginning of
| October.
|
| I'm aware this is anecdata, but I'm not used to needing
| to wear shorts in September, let alone October.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Meanwhile, the global troposphere is averaging 0.56C
| higher than it was four decades ago.
| bawolff wrote:
| > If you are over, say, 25, then you know that the last
| 10 years have been _exceptional_ years for our climate
|
| And if you know anything about statistics, its that
| ancedotes are not the plural of data and that humans have
| a severe recency bias.
|
| The facts about climate change are damning enough, i
| don't know why people feel the need to resort to poor
| logic and fallacies when describing climate change. The
| truth is actually on your side. Lets present that
| instead.
| petemir wrote:
| > And if you know anything about statistics, its that
| ancedotes are not the plural of data and that humans have
| a severe recency bias.
|
| > The facts about climate change are damning enough, i
| don't know why people feel the need to resort to poor
| logic and fallacies when describing climate change. The
| truth is actually on your side. Lets present that instead
|
| I don't think that the majority of people deals well when
| confronted with statistics.
| ben_w wrote:
| > The facts about climate change are damning enough, i
| don't know why people feel the need to resort to poor
| logic and fallacies when describing climate change. The
| truth is actually on your side. Lets present that
| instead.
|
| In fairness, that demonstrably hasn't worked on the
| politicians for the last hundred years.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's slowing down at least.
| jl6 wrote:
| The rate of increase in emissions is slowing down. Which
| means emissions are still increasing.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Yeah, the third derivative is negative. Just needs to
| continue, perhaps speed up, but at least something's
| going in the right direction.
| wrs wrote:
| The world won't end for billions of years. In the next
| few decades, a whole bunch of humans will be financially
| devastated, physically relocated, and made dangerously
| jealous, defensive, and angry by climate change. Spin it
| how you like.
| bawolff wrote:
| Sure, but the original post wasn't talking about climate
| change.
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| > We just don't need the sensationalism - it turns people
| off and away from all the silliness.
|
| By contrast, this is the exact sort of haughty
| condescension that pushes people further away, often
| right into the hands of real extremists.
|
| The sensationalism is there because the problems of our
| ecology are literally sensational. Dismissing that is the
| real turnoff here.
| Alupis wrote:
| > literally sensational
|
| The zealots pushing the sensationalism often don't
| comprehend the forces at play - both natural and human-
| made. It's just religious fervor regurgitated because
| they passed some sort of faith purity test and were
| rewarded by other zealots with internet points.
|
| There's conflicting motives here - one that says the
| California coastline should always remain exactly how we
| enjoy it today, and one that says all of California used
| to be ocean floor.
|
| Any affirmative action we take to "preserve" the
| environment how we like it is in itself destructive to
| natural forces.
|
| With that said, any human-made actions that accelerate
| natural forces or create un-natural forces should indeed
| be minimalized or removed.
|
| The problem is the time scale. Zealots like to scare
| everyone into believing the world ends tomorrow - just
| like actual religious zealots tend to do to encourage
| conversion. If they can scare you enough to join them,
| they they see that as a win.
|
| The world is getting greener by the day - but these
| things take time. We're just not ready to have a 100%
| renewable system yet, but one day we will be there. The
| incentives to get there cannot be allowed to be fear - it
| must be logic. A greener future has to be the logical
| move.
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| > The zealots pushing the sensationalism often don't
| comprehend the forces at play - both natural and human-
| made
|
| This is the exact sort of haughty condescension that
| pushes people further away, often right into the hands of
| real extremists.
| cassepipe wrote:
| This is a straw man argument : Those who don't agree with
| me must be ignorant religious fanatics, surely not people
| who have been listening to what scientists working on the
| subject have been saying for more that 30 years.
|
| Nobody really believes the worlds is going to disappear
| under big wave, it's of course a shorthand for "I have
| strong reasons to believe that my living conditions will
| degrade terribly over the next years (and I think we are
| collectively ignoring the problem ?)"
|
| If feel like you are denying the level of denialism the
| topic gets which to me is a much bigger concern that
| people being overly alarmist. I am not sure that level of
| denialism is the fault of fear-mongerers rather than the
| fact that most people want to bury their head in the
| sand, don't change anything to their way of life and
| carry on business as usual.
|
| > The world is getting greener by the day - but these
| things take time. We're just not ready to have a 100%
| renewable system yet, but one day we will be there. The
| incentives to get there cannot be allowed to be fear - it
| must be logic. A greener future has to be the logical
| move.
|
| Sure but that's putting under the rug a lot of important
| questions. Climate don't care whether we are _trying_.
| Most scientists say it 's not going fast enough and that
| not going fast enough will put us in big trouble. Another
| question is how much fossil fuel will be necessary for
| the transition, are we sure we are the spending the most
| of our fossil energy in order to make the switch ?
| jplusequalt wrote:
| I agree, but people have been ringing the bells about
| climate change for 40 years. When will we actually do
| something about it? I think the increased sensationalism
| is, at the very least, a sign that people are becoming
| afraid about our lack of action.
| Alupis wrote:
| This is false dichotomy. We _are_ doing things about it -
| but those things take time to mature and become ready.
| The Zealots just cannot fathom things not being good
| enough to act catastrophically _right now_.
|
| We simply are not ready yet to ditch fossil fuels and go
| full-electric - among other things. There will be a day,
| yes, and that day might be within our lifetimes
| (hopefully), but forcing it _right now_ when it 's
| clearly not ready is so incomprehensibly short-sighted
| that it borders on insanity. We cannot even keep the
| lights on year-round as it is.
|
| Imaging going full-eclectic everything today. The amount
| of pain the nation would feel would lead to an
| irreversible backwards slide of all the progress that's
| been made. It would set the climate activist agenda back
| decades.
|
| My point is, the cooler heads need to prevail here. We
| are marching ever-towards a cleaner future - we just
| aren't there yet. We need to stop the silly posturing and
| tribal signals, such as plastic straw bans and what-not,
| and focus on what actually matters... and not force it
| until it's actually ready.
| cycomanic wrote:
| You are saying we are getting there, but don't give
| evidence that the pace of change is fast enough. Instead
| you call everyone who says the pace isn't fast enough
| (which includes most of the scientists working on climate
| change btw) "sensationalists" and "zealots".
|
| Do you have any evidence that the current pace of change
| is sufficient to avert the most damaging aspects of
| climate change?
| jplusequalt wrote:
| I strongly disagree that we are doing something about it.
| We are doing the bare minimum, if that. Until we start
| heavily regulating corporations on their carbon impact
| and taxing further carbon from being extracted from the
| ground, we aren't truly doing something about climate
| change.
| kingdomcome50 wrote:
| Totally agree. The world is the best it has ever been by
| nearly any metric.
|
| My father had to _literally_ practice hiding under his
| desk at school with a Geiger counter in preparation for
| nuclear war. He was then _drafted_ into Vietnam... I
| don't think I have it so bad.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "The world is the best it has ever been by nearly any
| metric."
|
| How about fertility of the soil, area of land covered by
| desert vs forest, number of insects and in general
| diversity of wildlife, amount of fossil fuels burned
| every minute, amount of opioids intake, anti depression
| drugs consumption, number of days you have to wait to see
| a special doctor, inflation rate, ...
|
| So good to hear, that you are currently doing well. And
| we surely could be worse off and many things certainly
| did improve. But give it some more geopolitical
| escalation and you getting drafted as well in the neae
| future remains a very real possibility.
| ben_w wrote:
| > amount of opioids intake
|
| *embarrassed British cough regarding the Opium Wars*
|
| That said, your list is half global, half national. We're
| not all suffering from the mistakes of the USA in over-
| prescribing things.
| bawolff wrote:
| I mean, if we look at history, climate change (even much
| smaller than what we are facing) tends to trigger wars.
| Suddenly land that was valuable isn't and vice versa.
| Even in the most optomistic scenario it will probably
| destabalize the world order and result in conflicts.
|
| Like e.g. weather events are thought to be one of the
| likely factors in the late bronze age collapse. There's
| evidence that unusual climate events coincided with the
| fall of rome. Like obviously a lot of other factors were
| at play, climate just pushed something brittle to its
| breaking point.
| swader999 wrote:
| And yet there's a proxy, some would even call it a direct
| war between Russia and NATO that has some non zero
| probability of going nuclear.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Honestly always fascinated by this kind of line. Like
| pedantry aside, it always reads like we are all working
| together towards some big press briefing in the future,
| to let everyone else know about climate change for the
| first time. Like who is the audience here? The swing
| voters here aren't going to decide the election!
| [deleted]
| k_roy wrote:
| > We just don't need the sensationalism - it turns people
| off and away from all the silliness.
|
| And flat out ignoring it turns you into a Republican, and
| clearly hasn't accomplished anything so far.
|
| You can't complain about say, food prices, and also not
| recognize how the weather in the last few decades is a
| contributor to food yields.
|
| But no, expensive food prices is the President's fault
| (either current or prior), and talking about it is
| sensationalism.
| developer93 wrote:
| I'm also turning 40, but I'd much rather be like that than
| a young person right now..
| S201 wrote:
| So in other words, more clickbait doomer-ism titles. It's
| disappointing to see this type of junk "journalism" be
| submitted to, and upvoted on, HN.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i wonder: would clickbait style articles be submitted if
| there were no karma points?
| [deleted]
| yieldcrv wrote:
| sounds like we need another term than "normal" state if an
| ozone layer with a hole is my entire life
| kulahan wrote:
| Your life is a hell of a lot shorter than the life of the
| ozone layer, so it's kinda weird to constrain it to that
| timeframe
| spacecadet wrote:
| Yeah but people do this. Consider for a moment that most
| environmentalism is really just self-preservation...
| consider the experience of the "earth" over its lifetime,
| compared to humanities...
|
| Feel the need to *just a thought, Im not some anti-
| climate change nut job...
| stainablesteel wrote:
| so was it 2.9 brazils last year?
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