Well, Editec has done it again. I suspect he did not even look at the article, but make a wise guess. What the article says is that cosmic rays and the CFCs work in a synergic relationship to deplete the O3 layer.
As for the rest of you assholes, did you ever even consider actually reading the article? Apparently you did not read the article, Walleyes, or you would have seen the following paragraph.
http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~qblu/Lu-2009PRL.pdf
Then the
evidence of the correlation between CRs, chlorofluorocarbon
(CFC) dissociation, and O3 loss was found from
satellite data by Lu and Sanche [8]: the O3 hole is exactly
located in the polar stratosphere and at the altitude of
18 km where the CR ionization shows a maximum.
CRs are the only electron source in the stratosphere, while
halogen (Cl, Br)-containing molecules are long known to
have extremely large cross sections of dissociative attachments
of low-energy electrons [9]. The latter reaction will
be greatly enhanced when halogenated molecules are adsorbed
or buried at the surfaces of polar molecular ice,
relevant to polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) ice in the winter
polar stratosphere, as firstly discovered by Lu and Madey
[6,7] and subsequently confirmed by others in experiments
and theoretical calculations [10–16]. For example, the
dissociative attachment cross section at 0 eV electrons
for CF2Cl2 adsorbed on the surface of water ice has been
measured to be 1 1014 cm2, which is about 1 106
times the photolysis cross section of CF2Cl2 [6,10]. As
many challenges as the CR-cloud model has received [4,5],
however, the CR-related O3 depletion mechanism has also
been the subject of strong debate [17–23].
Actually I did take the time to read it. You should too.
One might argue that a simply time correlation does not
guarantee a physical mechanism. However, there exist the
following facts. (1) As discussed above, there is no alternative
mechanism for the observed time correlation between
polar ozone loss and CR intensity, which cannot be
explained by the photochemical model predicting a monotonic
recovery (increase) of the polar total ozone since
2000. (2) There is also a strong spatial correlation observed:
the O3 hole is exactly located in the lower polar
stratosphere at 18 km where the ionization rate of CRs
producing electrons is the strongest [8,23]. (3) There are
known PSC ice particles in the winter polar stratosphere.
(4) Laboratory measurements and theoretical calculations
have clearly demonstrated that ice surfaces can trap electrons
and enhance the electron-induced reactions of halogenated
species (inorganic and organic) at the surfaces by
orders of magnitude, compared with corresponding gasphase
reactions [6–16]. (5) Even if one still assumes that
the photochemical model were the dominant mechanism,
FIG. 4 (color online). Percentage variation of mean total ozone
vs CR intensity with all the data from Figs. 1–3: solid circles for
annual O3 data with latitudes 0–60 S, upper triangles for
October O3 with latitudes 60–90 S, down triangles and diamonds
for annual O3 at Halley and Faraday/Vernadsky, respectively.
To plot all these data together, the October and annual O3
data for the polar region were reduced by factors of 5 and 2.5,
respectively. The solid line is the best fit to the data, giving a
linear equation (see text).
PRL 102, 118501 (2009) PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS
week ending
20 MARCH 2009
118501-3
then a small amplitude (10%) of the CR-intensity oscillation
in an 11-yr cycle would cause a nonobservable variation
of the polar total ozone. To illustrate this, assuming
that the photochemical model accounted for 70% of O3
loss in the polar stratosphere (i.e., only the rest of 30%
were caused by the CR mechanism), then a variation of
10% in the CR intensity would cause only a 3% variation
of the polar total ozone, which would be even lower than
the fluctuation level of the ozone data (Fig. 2). This is
contradictory to the observed modulation amplitude of
about 12% in the polar total O3 during an 11-yr cycle, as
shown in Fig. 2. Thus, the above facts (1)–(5) force one to
conclude that the CR-driven electron-induced reaction is
the dominant mechanism for causing the polar O3 hole.
This mechanism must be input to remove the large discrepancy
between the simulated results and the observed
O3 loss [25,26].
Finally, a correct mechanism should be able to not only
explain the observed data, but also to predict future trends
of the O3 hole. Since the 11-yr cycle variation of the CR
intensity is predictable, the CR-driven electron reaction
mechanism leads to direct predictions of one of the severest
O3 losses (due to the CR peak) in 2008–2009, and of
probably another maximum around 2019–2020 if a large
halogen amount is still in the stratosphere.
http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~qblu/Lu-2009PRL.pdf