On Cosmic-Ray-Driven Electron Reaction Mechanism for Ozone Hole and Chlorofluorocarbon Mechanism for Global Climate Change

TL;DR

This paper supports the cosmic-ray driven electron mechanism as a key process behind ozone depletion and suggests CFCs are the main drivers of late 20th-century global warming, challenging the dominant CO2 narrative.

Contribution

It provides evidence that CRE is the primary mechanism for ozone loss and that CFCs significantly contributed to global warming, countering recent satellite data criticisms.

Findings

CRE mechanism explains ozone hole cyclic variations.

CFCs account for most of the late 20th-century global warming.

Satellite data criticisms are unfounded based on coverage issues.

Abstract

Numerous laboratory measurements have provided a sound physical basis for the cosmic-ray driven electron-induced reaction (CRE) mechanism of halogen-containing molecules for the ozone hole. And observed spatial and time correlations between polar ozone loss or stratospheric cooling and cosmic rays have shown strong evidence of the CRE mechanism [Q.-B. Lu, Phys. Rep. 487, 141-167(2010)]. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were also long-known greenhouse gases but were thought to play only a minor role in climate change. However, recent observations have shown evidence of the saturation in greenhouse effect of non-CFC gases. A new evaluation has shown that halocarbons alone (mainly CFCs) could account for the rise of 0.5~0.6 deg C in global surface temperature since 1950, leading to the striking conclusion that not CO2 but CFCs were the major culprit for global warming in the late half of the 20th century [Q.-B. Lu, J. Cosmology 8, 1846-1862(2010)]. Surprizingly, a recent paper [J.-W. Grooss and R. Muller, Atmos. Environ. 45, 3508-3514(2011)] has criticized these new findings by presenting "ACE-FTS satellite data". Here, I show that there exist serious problems with such "ACE-FTS satellite data" because the satellite has essentially not covered the Antarctic vortex in the presented months (especially winter months during which most effective CRE reactions are expected) and that the criticisms do not agree with the scientific facts in the literature. Instead, real data from multiple satellites provide strong evidence of the CRE mechanism. So far, the CRE mechanism is the only one that reproduces and predicts 11-year cyclic variations of ozone loss in the Antarctic O3 hole and of resultant stratospheric cooling, and the CFC mechanism can well explain both recent global warming and cooling. These findings should improve our understandings of the ozone hole and global climate change.