Fukushima Releases Expanding Arctic Ozone Hole?
Just when you thought the 'news' about Fukushima can't get much worse, with an impending China Syndrome threatening god knows WHAT bloody hell catastrophe on top of the huge-scale radiation releases that are contaminating the Pacific Ocean and US Pacific west and the world globhally on TOP of saturating much of the Island of Japan, now it seems there's VERY compelling evidence that the ionizing gas compounds esp. Xenon and Iodine that were released in HUGE volumes in the early explosions and on near-continual basis since, have a MAJOR impact on destroying Ozone, and MAY be --in fact, the probability of which is very high-- responsible for the sudden unprecedented occurance of a large Ozone Hole appearing above the Arctic Circle, with GREAT implications for affecting Climate Change and environmental conditions re: supporting human and non-human species.
ANOTHER technical 'detail' the MSM won't touch with a 100 foot hole.
Damn them.
Anyway, make of this what you will, just thought this speculation needs to have a wider airing, esp. here on RI's Fukushima thread.
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http://www.japan-communication.net/ozonehole.htmlHow Fukushima Releases Expanded the New Arctic Ozone Hole
By Yoichi Shimatsu
October 13, 2011
Ozone in the stratosphere serves as an invisible shield against harmful levels of ultraviolet (UV) rays in sunlight that increase the risk of skin cancer and sunburn. Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), released from refrigerators and spray cans, can result in a vast ozone hole, as recorded over the Antarctic region. CFCs, however, are not the sole cause of ozone depletion.
In early spring, an 11-nation team of weather researchers were surprised to discover a large oblong ozone hole over the Arctic, stretching over Greenland, Scandinavia and into European Russia. The Japanese researchers, interviewed by NHK, were emphatic that the hole, which opened in winter, rapidly expanded in March and April. The time-frame of expansion coincided with the releases of radioactive isotopes and gases from the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant.
After watching the NHK report, I realized that the new Arctic ozone hole expanded far more rapidly than the several years normally required for thinning over the Antarctic. The elongated shape of the depleted Arctic zone also exactly corresponds to the path of the Fukushima contamination carried by the jet stream (as repeatedly described in my radio talks).
Summoning my youthful lessons at the world's leading organic chemistry faculty, I went over some scientific papers on the properties of elements released from Fukushima. Yes, as it turns out, several of the released isotopes - especially iodine and xenon, as well as others - are capable of destroying ozone in inordinate quantity.
Clouds Over the Ice Cap
It is laudable that career scientists come to conclusions only slowly - but often too slowly in the case of a global emergency. For a science writer, in contrast, it is sometimes important to make educated estimates of a situation rather than to just sit in the dark. (Note: My decision to drop out from organic chemistry was due to the unsolved gunshot death of my brilliant major professor/dean, a top consulting scientist for the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company in Indiana, a case that illustrated how drug research can be dangerous in more ways than one.) As a consequence of this mystery probably related to the side effects of a drug that was never recalled, I became a journalist and science writer along a path that led to Fukushima.
Before discussing the effects of iodine and xenon, the following is an excerpt from the October 2 issue of the journal Nature on the Arctic ozone hole.
"The depletion of the Arctic ozone layer reached an unprecedented level in early 2011 and was "comparable to that in the Antarctic," an international research team said Sunday in the online version of the British science magazine Nature.
"For the first time, sufficient loss occurred to reasonably be described as an Arctic ozone hole," said the nine-country team, including Hideaki Nakajima of the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture.
"Our results show that Arctic ozone holes are possible even with temperatures much milder than those in the Antarctic," it also said.
It is harder for ozone-destroying chlorine monoxide to form in the stratosphere of the Arctic as winter temperatures are higher than in the Antarctic, according to the group.
"The 2010-11 Arctic winter-spring was characterized by an anomalously strong stratospheric polar vortex and an atypically long continuously cold period," the team said in the article contributed to Nature.
"If the layer of ozone that blocks ultraviolet rays is eradicated, it will negatively affect human health," he said, adding, "We need to monitor the situation down the track."
Now, for a simplified explanation of the resulting chemical processes: Due to an abnormally cold winter and updrafts of moisture from the sea, clouds formed at high altitude over the Arctic. Water (H2O), introduced by these conditions into the upper atmosphere, comes under chemical attack from UV and other types of radiation. The bombardment splits off unstable and chemically reactive hydroxyl radicals (OH-). These hydroxyl radicals then come in contact with ozone, O3, a reaction that combines back into oxygen (O2) and water. Thus ozone is destroyed.
Bad Elements
The massive releases of isotopes and gases from Fukushima No.1 made havoc of this already bad situation. The first culprit is iodine, which is highly reactive with ozone. Under normal conditions, iodine is absorbed by algae and microorganisms long before it can reach the middle atmosphere, and therefore is practically nonexistent in the stratosphere. Fukushima No.1 deposited unprecedented amounts of iodine into the Arctic sky.
Second, xenon gas is usually inert, but its isotope can react with fluorine in the atmosphere. Huge waves of xenon were detected by satellite crossing the Pacific and over Canada along a northeasterly path into Greenland, the Arctic and northern Europe. A backwash of xenon also traveled westward in a gigantic eddy swirling over the Russian Far East, Mongolia and down to Beijing. Not by coincidence, the meteorology team also noted a temporary ozone hole over Siberia and Mongolia. The correlations just cannot be dismissed.
Third, radioactive isotopes as a general class emit neutrons and electrons,which can bombard and split water molecules, unleashing hydroxyl radicals, the standard destroyer of ozone. There are probably more chemical mechanisms involved, but the ones discussed here indicate the strong probability that Fukushima releases accelerated the expansion of the new Arctic ozone hole.
The consequences are quite serious for human health across the directly affected regions, and bordering areas including northern Germany and Poland. Increased UV exposure adds to the low-level dosages of cesium and other radioactive isotopes. Much of the population is fair-complexioned and more vulnerable to skin cancer and related radiation-linked gene disorders.
A Complex System in Crisis
It is ironic that my article on this issue , posted at
www.rense.com was attacked by proponents of global warming, who have suffered recent embarrassment for making simplistic assertions. Climate change arises within a complex system of causal factors. Carbon dioxide emissions from coal is major factor but not the only call, or all societies could simply convert to nuclear power, as some anti-global warming lobbyists recommend. Explosions at a nuclear power plant can exponentially worsen the effects of climate change, as has just happened over the Arctic.
The solutions are neither simple nor easy to achieve, based on my experiences at Fukushima, along the Silk Road or in flooded Thailand. Although we may feel bombarded by an endless series of crises, there is no place to hide and nowhere to run. We must face those lethal odds.
The opening of the Arctic ozone hole should spur governments, industry, agriculture and communities to redouble their efforts to reduce emissions of CFCs and greenhouse gases. including carbon dioxide. Citizens need a better understanding of the natural and human-driven processes at work, and so governments have to quit their habit of launching official cover-ups as they have done after Fukushima. Instead of expensive and ineffective panaceas and empty publicity stunts in response to the Fukushima crisis, what people need is a realistic strategy to guide their projects to remedy the situation. Finally, as I have pointed out time and again, good ideas can be realized only through hard work, including physical labor. If you are unwilling to work, nothing good will happen.
It is awful to think that Chicken Little was right. The sky is falling, at least over the Arctic, so what are we going to do about it?
Yoichi Shimatsu, the initiator of Project REFFIT (Rescue Effort for Family Farmers in Tohoku /Northern Japan) in Fukushima, is a freelance science and technology journalist and former editor of The Japan Times Weekly.
