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Ozone Layer


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The thinning of the ozone layer allows more ultraviolet light from the sun to reach the Earth's surface. This is harmful to life in various ways, including giving people a higher chance of contracting skin cancer, but it does almost nothing to heat up the planet, so far as I am aware.

 

Global climate change is caused by an increase in the so-called "greenhouse gases" principally carbon dioxide, CO2, rather than by a decrease of anything in the atmosphere.  

 

On the point about synthesising ozone, yes we can make this, by electrolysis or electric discharges. But it won't help the climate problem.

 

Here is a geophysicist who asserts that because UV is 48 times more energetic than IR, that ozone is the primary driver of earth's climate. https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/index.html

 

Solar energy reaching Earth when ozone is depleted is 48 times hotter than terrestrial energy absorbed by greenhouse gases. There simply is not enough energy absorbed by greenhouse gases for them to cause global warming. Plus carbon dioxide, for example, makes up only 0.04% of the atmosphere, and therefore has very limited heat capacity.

 

According to the Planck postulate, energy in radiation is equal to the frequency of oscillation contained in the radiation times a constant. The oscillatory energy involved in solar ultraviolet radiation reaching Earth with frequencies around 967 terahertz (wavelength=310 nanometers, energy=4 electron volts, eV) is 48 times greater than the oscillatory energy of infrared radiation absorbed by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide with a frequency of 20.1 terahertz (wavelength=14.9 micrometers, energy=0.083 electron volts).

 

Temperature in a gas is proportional to the mean velocity of all molecules within the gas. When solar ultraviolet energy causes photodissociation, the energy of oscillation contained in the molecular bonds broken is converted into translational kinetic energy of the separating molecular pieces, heating the gas. Infrared radiation absorbed by greenhouse gases increases the internal oscillatory energy of the molecule but has limited direct effect on the temperature of the gas.

 

E=hν is the energy that must be added to a physical/chemical system, typically through radiation, in order to cause a chemical reaction. In photochemistry, hν is used in chemical equations to signify the energy absorbed that causes photoionization or photodissociation. For example, frequency must be greater than 3000 terahertz to ionize nitrogen (N2) or greater than 1237 terahertz to dissociate oxygen (O2). Infrared radiation, frequency less than 430 terahertz, does not have enough energy to penetrate glass. Visible light, frequencies between 430 and 790 terahertz, has enough energy to cause photosynthesis. Ultraviolet radiation, frequencies greater than 790 terahertz, begins to damage DNA, causing sunburn and skin cancer. X-rays with frequencies greater than 30,000 terahertz have enough energy to penetrate your body but will also destroy your body unless the amount, the dosage, is minimal.

 

http://ozonedepletiontheory.info/Images/absorption-rhode.jpg

 

I can't say I understand all the physics involved (yet), but CO2 seems completely irrelevant nonetheless.  Even if CO2 doubled to 0.08% concentration, it would still be irrelevant since water vapor absorbs much more IR than CO2 (and higher-energy IR as well) and is at a 100x greater concentration in the atmosphere (4% vs 0.04%).

 

If any gas is the primary driver of earth's climate, it would have to be O2 and O3 due to high concentrations and absorption of high-energy light, but I believe the sun is ultimately responsible for the temperature of the earth.  When I stand in front of a heater, the temperature of the heater is vastly more meaningful than an extra 0.04% concentration of wool in my garments.

 

A gas that constitutes 0.04% that absorbs relatively little low-energy radiation in order to cause a meaningful change in temperature seems very much like an extraordinary claim and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, yet I see little evidence and the more I dig, the less I see.

 

I hail from a background in assuming solar energy had been locked-up in carbon bonds (from photosynthesis) then buried in the earth and for a time I assumed that the breaking of those bonds would release heat and the carbon would insulate the escape of the heat from earth.  That seemed like a reasonable assumption given that the temperatures of the distant past were indeed much higher than today before all the energy was locked in the bonds, but now I see that the heat simply escaped and the leftover carbon isn't meaningful.  It was an interesting idea, but it wasn't significant in the face of much stronger forces.  And now, as you know, I'm wondering if co2 can actually cool the earth like clouds of water vapor.

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