Friday, September 28, 2007

The NOzone Layer

In the same way that I used to believe that the science of man-made global warming was settled, I've always believed that the science of ozone depletion in the atmosphere was also done and dusted. Not only that, I believed that only a fanatic would dispute it.

That was then. Now I no longer accept that there's a consensus on climate change science. More than that I now believe that the science of CO2-induced warming is deeply flawed and that there are other climate forcings that are much more important (particularly solar factors, including the magnetosphere and the relationship to cosmic rays). However, there now looks like there's evidence that the ozone hole science might be flawed.

Why is this important? Because the science of climate change is more complex than ozone depletion. In both cases models were used extensively even though the underlying theories were not fully developed. If the flaws in ozone depletion are further verified then it ought to cause more people to doubt the CO2 theories on climate change.

And, as an end-note, it's worth mentioning that Pat Michaels, recently moved out of his role as State Climatologist of Virginia because of his climate-change skepticism, was also an ozone depletion skeptic...

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