tlijy@cc.curtin.edu.au (04/16/91)
In article <1991Apr12.163103.11472@welch.jhu.edu>, jimh@welch.jhu.edu (Jim Hoffman) writes: > You're not the only one hearing rumors. The following is taken >from "Censored Stories of the Year," ... > > #4 on the list this year is: > "NASA Shuttles destroy the ozone shield. > (SSU Star, Earth Island Journal, San Francisco Chronicle) > > ...each time a U.S. space shuttle is launched, 187 tons of > ozone-eating molecules are released into the atmosphere... > ... a single shuttle flight can destroy up to 10 million > tons of ozone. It would take only 300 shuttle flights to > completely destroy the ozone. > > ...claims by Dr. Helen Caldicott...that ``with each launch, > 25 percent of the ozone is destroyed. So far the space shuttle > has destroyed 10 percent of the ozone.'' > > A typo in Mr. Leech's transcription of this story makes these claims sound > ridiculous. The story I read said "with each launch, .25 percent..." > -- Well, atmospheric ozone has its highest density at 20 km. There is not much ozone near the earth surface or high up in the atmosphere anyway. Besides Shuttle does not release all of 187 tons of ozone eatting molecules at one place. I have two questions about Dr. Helen Caldicott 's statement: (1) How did she come up with " 25% " figure? As I pointed out in my earlier post that we have no confidence in measuring total ozone yet. (2) When she used the word "destroy", did she take natural restoration ability in to account? Only if the demage exceeds the restorative ability of atmospheric system, then it worries me a lot. _Jason Y. Li =============================================================================== Satellite & Remote Sensing Res. Group |1) PSImail: psi%050529452300070::TLIJY Dept. of Applied Physics __________|2) Internet: TLIJY@cc.curtin.edu.au Curtin Univ. of Tech. |3) Bitnet: TLIJY%cc.curtin.edu.au@cunyvm.bitnet Perth, West. Australia |4) UUCP : uunet!munnari.oz!cc.curtin.edu.au!TLIJY <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> People who have nothing to say are quickly tired of their own company. [Collier]