JACKSON, Wyo., Nov. 18, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reducing carbon dioxide emissions, as urged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others, is likely to cause major increases in the cost of energy. Yet our economy is driven by an ample supply of inexpensive energy.
Global mean temperatures rose about one degree Fahrenheit between 1970 and 1998, but have remained constant for the past 16 years. Meanwhile carbon dioxide emissions have risen briskly, suggesting they do not control temperature.
In the late 1960s, human-manufactured chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) became widely used as refrigerants, solvents, and spray-can propellants. Temperatures began to rise. In 1974, scientists concluded that CFCs deplete the ozone layer. With discovery of the Antarctic Ozone Hole in 1985, scientists and politicians worked together to formulate the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, effective in 1989. Under this protocol, emissions of CFCs began to decrease slowly by 1993, ozone depletion began to decrease very slowly by 1995, and global temperatures have remained constant since 1998.
The ozone layer, more than 12 miles up in the atmosphere, is formed and destroyed constantly by very high-energy ultraviolet radiation from the sun. When ozone is reduced (depleted), more of this sun-burning, cancer-causing radiation reaches Earth, cooling the ozone layer and warming Earth. This ultraviolet energy is 48 times hotter, 48 times more energetic that infrared radiation absorbed by greenhouse gases.
"There simply is not enough thermal energy absorbed by greenhouse gases to have much effect on global temperatures," explains Dr. Peter L. Ward, a geophysicist and program leader who retired after 27 years working with the United States Geological Survey. "Ozone depletion theory explains observed temperatures far more clearly than greenhouse-gas theory."
Ozone is also depleted by volcanic eruptions emitting chlorine and bromine. Effusive, basaltic volcanic eruptions, typical in Hawaii and Iceland, cause global warming. Explosive volcanoes, on the other hand, such as the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, cause early warming but net cooling because they eject megatons of sulfur dioxide and water just below the ozone layer, forming a mist or aerosol that reflects and scatters sunlight, cooling Earth for about three years.
Climate throughout geologic time appears to be controlled primarily by the duration of effusive volcanoes causing warming and the frequency of explosive volcanoes causing cumulative cooling.
"Because global warming is caused by ozone depletion," Ward concludes, "reducing carbon dioxide emissions is unlikely to have any significant effect on reducing global warming."
A more detailed press release is available at ozonedepletiontheory.info/press-release.pdf. A 58-minute video explaining the science is available on YouTube at tinyurl.com/Peter-L-Ward. The science is described in detail at ozonedepletiontheory.info