State of the Ozone Layer

From your 1st reference: "… He also warns that human behavioral patterns, such as people spending more time outdoors in the UK as the climate warms, may be more significant than thinning of the ozone layer in exposing people to harmful UV radiation."
I can think of a lot more "human behavioral patterns" that are detrimental to our health, but the reported rise of 'bad ozone' levels near the ground is quite scary!

I hold with my original post, which is that the whole matter is a stalking horse. The "hole in the oxone layer" is : A) At the thinnest part of the atmosphere, B) At a trivial point in asmuch as the pole is at a tangent to the radiant energy source (Think it through - even in a fluids dynamics sense it's trivial). C) It has nothing to do with man. It's a volcano, for the love of god. To paraphrase t insure understanding: A) That's where the ozone ain't, to begin with B) It don't matter nohow,and C) It ain't my fault. QED

we have yet to know the full effect we have had on the ozone layer if we stopped polluting right now the ozone would still deterioriate over the next 50 years get your sunscreen out

While the hole in the ozone layer is over Antarctica the zone of depletion stretches a great deal further. I live in Adelaide and the levels of UV at the ground have been going up steadily for the last couple of decades and Adelaide is only 37deg south of the equator. The upshot of this is that if you live in Adelaide you have something like a 50% chance of developing a melanoma in your lifetime and I hardly think that half the population is an insignificant number. There is however one thing that I don't understand and that is why the problem isn't as bad at the North Pole since the majority of CFC usage is in the northern hemisphere. I am obviously missing something and would appreciate any comments.

There is no active volcano at the North Pole!!

Basically its because ice crystals in the atomosphere over Antarctica act as a catalyst. The shortest answer is that Antarctica is the coldest place on the planet, much colder than the northpole, and this leads to much higher ozone depletion. Please see link from the EPA below for a detailed explanation:

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/hole/whyant.html

Many thanks!!

I have never heard that a volcano was involved. I'd like someone to expand on this.

I am by no means an expert on this, but the counter-argument to man-made chemicals distroying the ozone,as I understand it, is that world-wide volcano eruptions release more ozone depleting chemicals than man does. And so man is not responsible for the problem and we are wasting our time worrying about nothing.

That's a myth. CFCs are not dissolvable in water whereas volcanic HCL is. Anything a volcano ejects into the atmosphere is washed out by rain fairly quickly. Here is a link:

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/volcano.html

Doesn't the ozone hole appear primarily in the winter? And isn't ozone a product of sunlight? One would expect that there has always been an ozone hole.

Quote: "Doesn't the ozone hole appear primarily in the winter?" - Yes, because ice crystals in the atmosphere act as catalysts.

Quote: "And isn't ozone a product of sunlight?"-Yes it is.

Quote: "One would expect that there has always been an ozone hole" - I suppose one would if one only considered how ozone is created and ignored all other facts, historical data, the fact that it's less likely to break down the colder it gets, the fact that air flows and ozone would come from the North to fill the gap and any other number of inconvenient facts that get in the way of that theory.

Oh, also the fact that there is no hole over the North Pole. Why do you suppose that is?