Scientists change their mind…again…
When I was in elementary/junior high/high school, everybody knew (or had been spoon-fed the belief) that the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica was A. Very. Bad. Thing. It was proof positive that man was destroying the Earth, one UV-irradiated penguin at a time, with all his pollution and emissions and buzzwords.
Except that now, “scientists say” that the hole in the ozone layer is actually a good thing, and that it “has been protecting the southern hemisphere against global warming.”
The ozone hole, caused by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) released into the atmosphere, is now steadily closing, but the research has suggested this could actually increase warming.
Scientists discovered brighter summertime clouds had formed over the area below the hole, which reflect more of the Sun’s powerful rays.
“These clouds have acted like a mirror to the sun’s rays, reflecting the sun’s heat away from the surface to the extent that warming from rising carbon emissions has effectively been cancelled out in this region during the summertime,” said Professor Ken Carslaw, who co-authored the research.
When the ozone hole seals, he expects an acceleration in warming in that region, he added.
During the 1980s, there were widespread warnings that UV exposure caused by the depleting ozone layer would have devastating impacts ranging from a rise in skin cancer, to damage to plants, to reduction of plankton.
The Leeds team found that beneath the Antarctic ozone hole, high-speed winds whip up large amounts of sea spray, which contains millions of salt particles.
This spray then forms clouds, and the increased spray over the last two decades has made these clouds brighter and more reflective – helping to keep global warming in check.
Heh…it’s almost like somebody built a backup plan into the ecosystem, eh?
But I digress.
What this ultimately goes to show is that the science is never settled, because it is not the nature of science to ever be settled. Science is a continuous, ongoing process of discovery, not a set of axiomatic statements of received “wisdom.” What we thought to be the case ten years ago doesn’t appear to be the case ten years on, and who knows what new revelations will come out in the next ten years.
This is difficult thinking for some to practice, though it’s easy thinking for others. Guys like me, whose lives are in some way linked to developments in computer technology, find it very easy to accept that the facts on the ground yesterday may not be the same as the facts on the ground tomorrow, and indeed that tomorrow’s facts might reverse or do away with some/all of yesterday’s facts and the conclusions drawn from them.
The side effect of this is that guys like me are also naturally skeptical about claims of settled science. This has much to do with the fact that computer technology has been advancing at breakneck speed since I wasn’t old enough to know how to count my age on one hand. I mean, the first computer I ever touched didn’t have a hard drive…now, I can get over a terabyte of storage for less than $100.
We laughed our asses off at Bill Gates when he posited that 640 kB of RAM should be enough for anybody, and for good reason! I just downloaded Mass Effect from Steam; its recommended system specs call for 2 GB of RAM. That’s over three thousand times Gates’ “enough for anybody” limit.
It’s like that with climate science. Years ago, the prediction of doom was overpopulation. Didn’t happen. Then it was a pending ice age. Didn’t happen. Now it’s global warming to the point of…what, exactly? Methane fireballs tearing across the sky, as one scientific journal put it? Probably not going to happen either. And for sure, you can bet that the science on the matter is anything but settled.
Because science never is. Just ask the Antarctic ozone hole, who just lost some of his villain status.
(hat tip)
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