Response to FishDontWalk on the Ozone Hole
One of the first questions in this article:
"How does a very dense gas like R-12 get elevated to 5 miles above the earth?"
Note: Freon 12 is about four times denser than oxygen, and three times denser than carbon dioxide.
First point: atmospherical circulation.
The atmosphere is not static; apart from the horizontal motion we feel as wind, there is vertical circulation driven by temperature differences. Soaring birds and glider pilots use small scale 'thermals' over warmer patches of ground to gain altitude. Larger patterns have air rising above the tropics and descending again near the poles, the motion complicated by the rotation of the Earth.
Even if these air movements were not enough, there is another phenomenon that needs to be considered: diffusion. This is the process which causes a mixture of gases to tend to become evenly mixed over time, due to the random motion of the molecules. The effect of gravity in causing heavier molecules to tend to lower layers and light molecules to drift up is negligible because of the velocities of the molecules - of the order of 1000mph - and the short distances they travel before colliding with other molecules - about 60 trillionths of a meter at sea-level to about one-tenth of a meter at 100km altitude. Also note that the speed is lower for heavier molecules, but as the square-root, ie a molecule 100 times heavier will have an average velocity only one tenth that of a lighter molecule. So Freon 12 will diffuse at about 60% the speed of carbon dioxide, not such a big difference.
If the argument was valid, then our atmosphere would tend to be stratified into layers of different density gases, with all the heavier molecules, like carbon dioxide and most pollutant molecules close to the surface, with water vapour at the top as the lightest common molecule in the atmosphere. This doesn't seem to be what we experience...
Regarding the release of chlorine from swimming pools, etc, I think the problem is the these are highly reactive molecules, unlike CFC's, so they don't persist in the atmosphere long enough to reach the stratosphere, where most of the ozone creation/depletion action is happening.
THe effect of volcanoes is short-lived, again because most of them don't deliver the chlorine high enough to reach the stratosphere directly. The chemistry is complicated, but under some conditions of low background atmospheric chlorine, volcanic eruptions may actually increase ozone concentrations, because some of the nitrogen compounds that are also often released actually disrupt the ozone-destroying reactions. See
http://www.aer.com/scienceResearch/volcano.html
Another question:
"Why is the ozone hole over Antarctica and not over the USA?"
The process is enhanced by the polar stratospheric clouds which can only form under polar conditions and which provide particles on which the various reacting compounds collect and are brought together to greatly enhance the particular reactions. In addition, the atmospheric circulation (the Antarctic Vortex) around the pole tends to limit mixing with the rest of the atmosphere, thus keeping the nitrogen compounds which are generated in mid-latitudes from disrupting the process, which also helps explain why there is no major ozone hole over the USA.
I don't think there is any evidence that volcanic activity in Antarctica is more intense than in many other parts of the world.
The process almost certainly occurs to some extent over the whole globe, but conditions are more favourable over the polar regions and Antarctica in particular. As concentrations rise, the effect will increase. Even if the major action happens over the poles, seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation distribute the ozone depleted air into mid-latitudes, so it will eventually start to affect places like the USA. We in Australia are already at risk because the Southern hole is much more severe.
A good detailed discussion can be found here:
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Thanks Bob!
I'm going to crosspost this in the Evolution forum under debunking creationism where I have my articles and others posted.
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins
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I keep thinking of ways to further clarify and strengthen the arguments, but I might wait till we have some response, so I get some feedback on what others might see as needing some further explanation.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
fishdontwalk is back and it still has that ozone layer claim even though Bill Morgan knows that it is false. It's at http://fishdontwalk.com/aviewer.asp?i=7 .
I'm the DWise1 who had tried to conduct a correspondence with Bill. He had written most of his site's articles for his creationist club's newsletter and he seemed to have based many of them on creationist presentations at their monthly meetings.
This ozone-layer article was just such a case. In it, he raises questions and claims that he has asked the "experts" those questions and none of them were ever able to give him an answer. Who were these "experts"? Air conditioning salesmen at trade shows!
So I Google'd and within 15 minutes found the answers to every single one of Bill's questions from the real experts, atmospheric scientists at NOAA. I gave that information to Bill and he tried to ignore it. His basic claim is that scientists claim that refrigerants are responsible for the depleting the ozone layer solely based on lab experiments and that it is impossible for the heavy refrigerant molecules to be present in the upper atmosphere. I pointed him to and directly quoted from the NOAA FAQ where it described the direct measurements of refrigerants at a range of altitudes in the atmosphere; those air samples were gathered directly by sounding rockets. Since he refused to accept that moving air can transport heavier molecules and even objects and since those heavier molecules have been proven by direct measurement to be in the upper atmosphere, it was therefore up to him to explain it. He immediately did what he always did; he ran away from the discussion.
But now it gets weird. A few months later, he set up his first web site and included a number of his articles, including this one, which is completely unchanged from the original article in the newsletter. I immediately pointed out to him that he knew for a fact that that article was false. He tried to deny it, so I showed him our earlier emails -- he would frequently lie to me about just about everything, so I made sure to save all our emails so I could show him what had actually been said. Of course, he ran away from the discussion, but the article remained.
That site eventually went away and months later he'd put up another site and that ozone article would be there again and I'd remind him that he knew that it was false and that he was therefore deliberately lying to the public. And he would refuse to respond.
He's been through about 3 or 4 sites, maybe more, and each time he has consciously chosen to include that article that he knows to be false. This is conclusive evidence that Bill Morgan is a liar.
Ever see those Xtian fish where a big "Truth" fish is eating a Darwin fish? Aren't they ironic? That that "truth" of theirs is a pack of lies and deceptions. And that the most fanatical Xtians, like Bill Morgan, believe that the only way to serve their god is through lies and deception.
That is a great account, glad you had the time and determination to chase the guy like that.
People like that are either consciously lying, or simply stuck on the "intuitive" level of thought, where if something 'feels' like it must be true, that's it, and they are just unable to adjust their 'knowledge' on the basis of independent empirical evidence.
That pure, abstract, evidence-free feeling of conviction of the Truth of an idea that comes along permanently attached to it, seems to be what is happening in the mind of people who appear totally unable to even conceive that the 'meme' that has infected their mind is just that.
I remember a guy interviewed on a program about religion and related issues on our national broadcaster here (Australia), who when queried about belief in God seemed totally unable to conceive that God was not such a basic ground of thought, that it literally made no more sense to question the idea than to doubt one's own existence.
For these people, the RRS slogan of Faith in God as a 'mind disorder' is really not much of an overstatement. The same mechanism seems to apply to other 'intuitive' convictions, like the pathological deniers of Global Warming, Ozone depletion, etc.
I am allowing that their are people who aren't quite so rigid in supporting their viewpoint, but where the case against their beliefs grows ever more solid, the non-pathological ones eventually concede. Whereas the pathological ones seem to cling onto their position more firmly than ever.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology