Bill Morgan never responded to any questions about his claims concerning
R-12 and the ozone layer. Still, his one single response was remarkable, given
that his most common way of handling direct questions has been to completely
ignore them.
Subj: Bad Science: R-12
Date: 98-04-29 23:35:40 EDT
From: DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com
Bill, a few things in your latest newsletter did not make much sense to me.
Your topic was "bad science" ("conclusions based on bad data") and the
example was the blaming of the depletion of the ozone layer on clorine atoms
originating from the refrigerant R-12 (Freon 12). Your point of contention
was that R-12 is very dense and so could not rise up to the ozone layer five
miles up through an atmosphere consisting of lighter molecules.
You took that question and "put it to the test" by attending air conditioning
trade shows (as part of your current job) and posing the question to the
sales and marketing people there, whose expertise was air conditioning and
refrigerator systems. Since none of them could answer a physics/chemistry
question from outside their own field of expertise, you concluded that that
question was unanswerable and that it was an example of "bad science." It
would be similar to me going to UNIX trade shows asking everybody to explain
the details of TSR programming (the terminate-and-stay programming that
produced the memory-resident pop-up utilities that were a real hot item in
DOS before Windows completely took over), except that some of the UNIX types
might have crossed over from DOS and so would know the answer.
Bill, have you asked any scientists that question? Have you researched any
of the literature discussing the effects of R-12 on the atmosphere? Have you
read any scientific explanations for the localizing of the ozone "hole" over
Antarctica? You blame Antarctic volcanic activity, but why wouldn't that
happen over more equitorial regions of volcanic activity? (hint: think about
the rotation of the earth and the associated wind and weather patterns) You
are assuming that the entire R-12 molecule (that's right, I am not familiar
with the chemistry of R-12, so I'm not sure whether it is a molecule or a
mixture) has to make the journey up to the ozone layer, but why not consider
the byproducts of R-12 reactions at the ground level that may be able to rise
to the occasion? Again, what does the literature say?
Another minor point I would question: "And keep in mind that refrigerants
operate in a closed system (systems that are designed not to leak; however if
they do leak, they are immediately repaired or replaced)." Excuse me. If
you had to replace a unit because the refrigerant had leaked out, then the
refrigerant had leaked out. And how does an end-user realize that he has a
leak until it has all leaked out or almost all leaked out? How leak-proof
are those systems, then I seem to remember something about having to
periodically recharge them (ie, put in
more refrigerant, which would mean that is missing, as in "leaked out"). And
what about the discarded units? Certainly there are reclamation efforts,
much more so now than before, but I doubt very much that every single
discarded refrigeration unit gets all its refrigerant reclaimed. In short,
leaks do happen and have happened. The only question would be, how much.
You had started to think about this question, but you stopped way short of
completely thinking it through. You certainly did not put it to any real
test. Have you read any of the primary source literature? Or even
secondary? There are a lot of articles posted on the Web on many subjects,
so I'd be surprised if there weren't any on R12 and the ozone layer. For
that matter, since the Web offers us the means of finding the email addresses
of individuals and organizations (I recently tracked down the author of a
shareware program who had been in Columbia but is now in Pakistan, all
through the Web), have you tried to email some of the scientists responsible
so that you can ask THEM your question? Or are you afraid that your little
conspiracy theory will fall apart when they provide you with the answer to
your question? Remember, seeking the truth is different from just trying to
show somebody up; you were doing the latter when you needed to be doing the
former.
You were using this question as an example of "bad science", so that you
could further discredit science, one of the necessary intermediate goals of
creation science (yeah, I have also heard the fundamentalist definition of
"true science" as that science which agrees fully with the Bible, although
that approach completely bypasses the scientific method). It is certainly
true that people with an agenda will latch on to a single finding or just
plain bad data or even create their own bad data and try to build an entire
movement out of it. A prime example of that is creation science.
The next question would be -- besides the question of whether you would be
willing to actually test your question -- , when you discover that you were
wrong, will the readers of your newsletter or the members of the Creation
Science Association of Orange County (CSAOC) ever hear about it? I am sure
that they have never heard about the mistake you had made about protein
comparisons. And I suspect that you have continued to propagate your
mistake, even though you know better.
But hey, it's the creation science way! I've been seeing that kind of stuff
happen for almost two decades now.
#########################################################
Subj: Bad Science: R-12 -- The Sequel
Date: 98-04-29 23:35:54 EDT
From: DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com
Bill, the day after I wrote the email concerning your questions concerning
R-12, I decided to look for the answers. Through Yahoo (heute schon
Yahoot?), I found them within 15 minutes. You could have done the same.
To keep myself honest, I left the previously authored email unchanged. As it
is, my suggestion that byproducts of R-12 reactions at ground level might be
what's getting to the ozone layer was wrong, because one of the primary
properties of CFCs is that they are extremely stable and do not react to
anything in the lower atmosphere, but only break down when bombarded by
high-energy UV radiation. Still, it was a possibility that needed to be
tested. Has something to do with the scientific method. You might have
heard something about that.
I found and saved copies of the FAQs which answer your questions. Those
questions are:
1. How Can Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Get to the Stratosphere If They're
Heavier than Air?
2. Why is the Ozone Hole Observed over Antarctica When CFCs Are Released
Mainly in the Northern Hemisphere?
3. Does Most of the Chlorine in the Stratosphere Come from Human or Natural
Sources?
Basically, despite the fact that CFC molecules are several times heavier than
air, direct measurement shows that they are present in the stratosphere in
sufficient quantity to do damage. They mix in with the lower atmosphere and
are transported by the winds, similar to how moving water can keep much
heavier particles in suspension. CFC is very stable and unreactive in the
lower atmosphere (which is one reason they had become so widely used in
industry) and so can persist for the years that it takes for them to reach
the stratosphere. Other sources of clorine (eg, swimming pools and volcanic
eruptions) do not contribute much, if any, to ozone depletion, because that
clorine is water-soluble and gets scrubbed out of the lower atmosphere long
before it could reach the stratosphere. CFC gets thoroughly mixed in the
lower atmosphere long before it works its way to the stratosphere, so the
locality of its production has no bearing on where the zones of greatest
depletion occur. Global atmospheric convection patterns, especially the
up-welling at the tropics which feed the down-welling at the poles, carry the
CFCs to the polar regions. Antarctic meteorology produces conditions which
promote the depletion reactions.
Object lesson: when you have a question about something, go ask somebody how
knows the answer, rather than to ask those who don't and then conclude that
the question is unanswerable. Don't jump to conclusions prematurely. Look
for the FAQs. (pun fully intended)
Below are copies of the FAQs which answer your questions. The .GIF files
that accompanied the FAQs have been attached to this email in aself-unZIPping
file, OZONE.EXE, just in case you do not have PKUNZIP or do not know how to
use it (No offense intended here, Bill. I honestly do not know what your
level of computer expertise is and I have learned the hard way never to
assume). Just run it and it will unzip itself. Then you can view the files
with your GIF viewer. Or just go to the URLs given below.
[Liber8r: if AOL's attachment protocol, which I believe to be MIME, is
incompatible with your email system, let me know so that we can work it out.
Or you could just go to the pages they are posted on. I had included them
because I doubt whether Bill would go to those pages himself.]
[DOH!! I'm sorry, but I forgot to bring that file home with me. I'll have
to owe you.]
####
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/1998/faq.html
Common Questions about Ozone
How Can Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Get to the Stratosphere If They're Heavier
than Air?
Although the CFC molecules are indeed several times heavier than air,
thousands of measurements have been made from balloons, aircraft, and
satellites demonstrating that the CFCs are actually present in the
stratosphere. The atmosphere is not stagnant. Winds mix the atmosphere to
altitudes far above the top of the stratosphere much faster than molecules
can settle according to their weight. Gases such as CFCs that are insoluble
in water and relatively unreactive in the lower atmosphere (below about 10
km) are quickly mixed and therefore reach the stratosphere regardless of
their weight.
Much can be learned about the atmospheric fate of compounds from the measured
changes in concentration versus altitude. For example, the two gases carbon
tetrafluoride (CF4, produced mainly as a by-product of the manufacture of
aluminum) and CFC-11 (CCl3F, used in a variety of human activities) are both
much heavier than air. Carbon tetrafluoride is completely unreactive in the
lower 99.9% of the atmosphere, and measurements show it to be nearly
uniformly distributed throughout the atmosphere as shown in the figure. There
have also been measurements over the past two decades of several other
completely unreactive gases, one lighter than air (neon) and some heavier
than air (argon, krypton), which show that they also mix upward uniformly
through the stratosphere regardless of their weight, just as observed with
carbon tetrafluoride. CFC-11 is unreactive in the lower atmosphere (below
about 15 km) and is similarly uniformly mixed there, as shown. The abundance
of CFC-11 decreases as the gas reaches higher altitudes, where it is broken
down by high energy solar ultraviolet radiation. Chlorine released from this
breakdown of CFC-11 and other CFCs remains in the stratosphere for several
years, where it destroys many thousands of molecules of ozone.
####
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/1998/faq6.html
Common Questions about Ozone
Why is the Ozone Hole Observed over Antarctica When CFCs Are Released Mainly
in the Northern Hemisphere?
Human emissions of CFCs do occur mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, with
about 90% released in the latitudes corresponding to Europe, Russia, Japan,
and North America. Gases such as CFCs that are insoluble in water and
relatively unreactive are mixed within a year or two throughout the lower
atmosphere (below about 10 km). The CFCs in this well-mixed air rise from the
lower atmosphere into the stratosphere mainly in tropical latitudes. Winds
then move this air poleward - both north and south - from the tropics, so
that air throughout the stratosphere contains nearly the same amount of
chlorine. However, the meteorologies of the two polar regions are very
different from each other because of major differences at the Earth's
surface. The South Pole is part of a very large land mass (Antarctica) that
is completely surrounded by ocean. These conditions produce very low
stratospheric temperatures which in turn lead to formation of clouds (polar
stratospheric clouds). The clouds that form at low temperatures lead to
chemical changes that promote rapid ozone loss during September and October
of each year, resulting in the ozone hole.
In contrast, the Earth's surface in the northern polar region lacks the
land/ocean symmetry characteristic of the southern polar area. As a
consequence, Arctic stratospheric air is generally much warmer than in the
Antarctic, and fewer clouds form there. Therefore, the ozone depletion in the
Arctic is much less than in the Antarctic.
####
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/1998/faq3.html
Common Questions about Ozone
Does Most of the Chlorine in the Stratosphere Come from Human or Natural
Sources?
Most of the chlorine in the stratosphere is there as a result of human
activities.
Many compounds containing chlorine are released at the ground, but those that
dissolve in water cannot reach stratospheric altitudes. Large quantities of
chlorine are released from evaporated ocean spray as sea salt (sodium
chloride) aerosol. However, because sea salt dissolves in water, this
chlorine quickly is taken up in clouds or in ice, snow, or rain droplets and
does not reach the stratosphere. Another ground-level source of chlorine is
its use in swimming pools and as household bleach. When released, this
chlorine is rapidly converted to forms that dissolve in water and therefore
are removed from the lower atmosphere, never reaching the stratosphere in
significant amounts. Volcanoes can emit large quantities of hydrogen
chloride, but this gas is rapidly converted to hydrochloric acid in rain
water, ice, and snow and does not reach the stratosphere. Even in explosive
volcanic plumes that rise high in the atmosphere, nearly all of the hydrogen
chloride is scrubbed out in precipitation before reaching stratospheric
altitudes.
In contrast, human-made halocarbons - such as CFCs, carbon tetrachloride
(CCl4) and methyl chloroform (CH3CCl3) - are not soluble in water, do not
react with snow or other natural surfaces, and are not broken down chemically
in the lower atmosphere. While the exhaust from the Space Shuttle and from
some rockets does inject some chlorine directly into the stratosphere, this
input is very small (less than one percent of the annual input from
halocarbons in the present stratosphere, assuming nine Space Shuttle and six
Titan IV rocket launches per year).
Several pieces of evidence combine to establish human-made halocarbons as the
primary source of stratospheric chlorine. First, measurements (see the figure
below) have shown that the chlorinated species that rise to the stratosphere
are primarily manufactured compounds (mainly CFCs, carbon tetrachloride,
methyl chloroform, and the HCFC substitutes for CFCs), together with small
amounts of hydrochloric acid (HCl) and methyl chloride (CH3Cl) which are
partly natural in origin. The natural contribution now is much smaller than
that from human activities, as shown in the figure below. Second, in 1985 and
1992 researchers measured nearly all known gases containing chlorine in the
stratosphere. They found that human emissions of halocarbons plus the much
smaller contribution from natural sources could account for all of the
stratospheric chlorine compounds. Third, the increase in total stratospheric
chlorine measured between 1985 and 1992 corresponds with the known increases
in concentrations of human-made halocarbons during that time.
####
OK, Bill, now that you know the rest of the story, what will you do about it?
Will your readers ever hear about this from you? Will you continue to tell
your story of how nobody could answer your questions?
#########################################################
Subj: Re: Bad Science: R-12
Date: 98-05-19 18:21:53 EDT
From: BillyJack6
To: DWise1
Hi!
You never answered my question of how does the R 12 make it to the
stratosphere. You wore out you keyboard assuming I have never read up on
this topic (I have and it is clear you really have not).
Can you answer my simple question of how the R 12 gets 5 miles above the
surface of the earth. The proponents endlessly teach what R 12 does to
ozone, I have read that endlessly, but my qwuestion is how does it get there.
Thanks
#########################################################
Subj: Ozone
Date: 98-06-03 23:32:50 EDT
From: DWise1
To: BillyJack6
CC: DWise1, liber8r@mcs.com
File: CQ-1.GIF (19251 bytes)
DL Time (14400 bps): < 1 minute
For Liber8r:
### BEGIN YOUR MESSAGE ###
Subj: Re: Bad Science: R-12
Date: 98-05-19 18:21:53 EDT
From: BillyJack6
To: DWise1
Hi!
You never answered my question of how does the R 12 make it to the
stratosphere. You wore out you keyboard assuming I have never read up on
this topic (I have and it is clear you really have not).
Can you answer my simple question of how the R 12 gets 5 miles above the
surface of the earth. The proponents endlessly teach what R 12 does to
ozone, I have read that endlessly, but my qwuestion is how does it get there.
Thanks
### END YOUR MESSAGE ###
>You never answered my question of how does the R 12 make it to the
stratosphere.<
Oh? I thought that I had. Please tell me why and in what way my response
did not answer your question.
>You wore out you keyboard ...<
Not at all; my father taught me long ago to let the tool do the work. I gave
you the straight skinny, exactly -- character for character -- as I had
gotten it from NOAA. You should learn how to use the Clipboard; that's what
it is there for.
>... assuming I have never read up on this topic<
Au contraire! It was obvious that you had read at least something on the
topic, even if it had been nothing more than a single article (please note
the use of the subjunctive there). You had questions. They had to have come
from somewhere, whether directly from your reading (ie, the author had raised
them himself) or from your own mind as you had read (the vacuous "From the
Mind of Bill Morgan" stationary notwithstanding). Furthermore, you were
asking a lot of the right questions, or at least the same questions that most
other people were asking, since they wound up on NOAA's frequently asked
questions (FAQ) list, so you were somewhat on the right track. You couldn't
have done that without having read anything on the topic.
However, at the same time it was also obvious that you had not done any
research to answer those questions. Or at least you weren't looking in the
right places. It's like the short campfire skit (stolen -- I mean,
researched -- from vaudeville, I'm sure) where a Scout comes up to the
campfire and starts looking for his watch:
"Where'd you lose it?"
"Way over there."
"But if it's way over there, why are you looking for it over here?"
"The light's better here."
Will that Scout ever find his watch by looking in all the wrong places? No,
of course not.
Your questions involve areas of physics and meteorology that deal with global
wind patterns at ALL levels of the atmosphere, convection currents on a
global scale, fluid motion, and particle dynamics, including interactions on
a molecular level involving gasses of greatly different densities. One very
good place to look for people with that kind of knowledge would be at NOAA;
that is what they do for a living. Instead, (by your account) you chose to
restrict your search to sales representatives at air conditioning trade
shows, who, let's face it, are not known for their expertise in the required
fields, nor should they be expected to have that kind of expertise. Since
you were looking in all the wrong places, naturally you could not find any
answers to your questions.
>(I have and it is clear you really have not).<
I already told you that I conducted my research for only fifteen minutes.
You never said how long you had conducted yours, but I would assume that it
was much longer than fifteen minutes. However, at the end of your extended
research, you had found no answers, whereas at the end of my mere fifteen
minutes, I had found the answers to all of your questions. That should tell
us something about the comparative effectiveness of our two separate research
efforts. Which research should prove more fruitful, 15 minutes looking in
the right place or 100 years looking in the wrong place?
Perhaps you could describe your research to us. Where did you look? What
did you find? Had you looked at NOAA's publications on the subject? Since I
have given you the URL, have you looked at NOAA's site in the meantime? If
you have further questions, will you direct them to NOAA, or will you
continue to harrass unsuspecting and unknowledgeable sales reps?
FWIW, here is the URL again (for your question of "How Can
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Get to the Stratosphere If They're Heavier than
Air?"):
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/1998/faq1.html.
You should be able to find your way back to the rest of NOAA's site from
there.
>Can you answer my simple question of how the R 12 gets 5 miles above the
surface of the earth. The proponents endlessly teach what R 12 does to
ozone, I have read that endlessly, but my qwuestion is how does it get
there.<
Again, that has been answered already. Here it is again; first my synopsis
and then the actual FAQ from NOAA:
### MY SYNOPSIS ###
Basically, despite the fact that CFC molecules are several times heavier than
air, direct measurement shows that they are present in the stratosphere in
sufficient quantity to do damage. They mix in with the lower atmosphere and
are transported by the winds, similar to how moving water can keep much
heavier particles in suspension. CFC is very stable and unreactive in the
lower atmosphere (which is one reason they had become so widely used in
industry) and so can persist for the years that it takes for them to reach
the stratosphere. Other sources of clorine (eg, swimming pools and volcanic
eruptions) do not contribute much, if any, to ozone depletion, because that
clorine is water-soluble and gets scrubbed out of the lower atmosphere long
before it could reach the stratosphere. CFC gets thoroughly mixed in the
lower atmosphere long before it works its way to the stratosphere, so the
locality of its production has no bearing on where the zones of greatest
depletion occur. Global atmospheric convection patterns, especially the
up-welling at the tropics which feed the down-welling at the poles, carry the
CFCs to the polar regions. Antarctic meteorology produces conditions which
promote the depletion reactions.
### END SYNOPSIS ###
For the following FAQ, figure cq-1.gif has been attached to this email.
### NOAA FAQ ###
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessments/ozone/1998/faq1.html
Common Questions about Ozone
How Can Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Get to the Stratosphere If They're Heavier
than Air?
Although the CFC molecules are indeed several times heavier than air,
thousands of measurements have been made from balloons, aircraft, and
satellites demonstrating that the CFCs are actually present in the
stratosphere. The atmosphere is not stagnant. Winds mix the atmosphere to
altitudes far above the top of the stratosphere much faster than molecules
can settle according to their weight. Gases such as CFCs that are insoluble
in water and relatively unreactive in the lower atmosphere (below about 10
km) are quickly mixed and therefore reach the stratosphere regardless of
their weight.
Much can be learned about the atmospheric fate of compounds from the measured
changes in concentration versus altitude. For example, the two gases carbon
tetrafluoride (CF4, produced mainly as a by-product of the manufacture of
aluminum) and CFC-11 (CCl3F, used in a variety of human activities) are both
much heavier than air. Carbon tetrafluoride is completely unreactive in the
lower 99.9% of the atmosphere, and measurements show it to be nearly
uniformly distributed throughout the atmosphere as shown in the figure. There
have also been measurements over the past two decades of several other
completely unreactive gases, one lighter than air (neon) and some heavier
than air (argon, krypton), which show that they also mix upward uniformly
through the stratosphere regardless of their weight, just as observed with
carbon tetrafluoride. CFC-11 is unreactive in the lower atmosphere (below
about 15 km) and is similarly uniformly mixed there, as shown. The abundance
of CFC-11 decreases as the gas reaches higher altitudes, where it is broken
down by high energy solar ultraviolet radiation. Chlorine released from this
breakdown of CFC-11 and other CFCs remains in the stratosphere for several
years, where it destroys many thousands of molecules of ozone.
### END FAQ ###
"The atmosphere is not stagnant. Winds mix the atmosphere to altitudes far
above the top of the stratosphere much faster than molecules can settle
according to their weight. Gases such as CFCs that are insoluble in water
and relatively unreactive in the lower atmosphere (below about 10 km) are
quickly mixed and therefore reach the stratosphere regardless of their
weight."
When I used to SCUBA dive, we were taught that there would be about 40 diving
fatalities each year in the US. 80% was due to beginners panicking and
killing themselves by doing something stupid (I have a classic case, if you
want to hear it). Most of the remaining 20% were on the east coast, where
they would get lost in Florida's underwater caves or in New England's sunken
ships and eventually drown, again through stupidity. In the ship-diving
fatalities, the diver would enter a space that looked perfectly clear, then
turn around to exit and be faced with a wall of zero visibility hiding the
exit. Just the slight turbulence generated by his fins would stir up the
silt that had settled out in the still water. A moving fluid can carry
heavier particles and keep them from settling out.
OK, Bill, there you have it again. Your question had been answered before
and now it has been answered again.
One of the conceptual errors you were making was to assume that the air was
stagnant, not moving. That would indeed result in a settling out of the
gasses according to their relative weights. However, the real world is never
so ideal. The air in the atmosphere does indeed move and the wind does
indeed blow (a clearly observable meteorological phenomenon in the North
Dakota winter, where it gets too cold to snow, so the wind just keeps
redistributing the snow that is already there, which gets dirt mixed in with
it, creating "snirt" -- been there, shoveled that). And gasses of different
densities do indeed mix.
Now, you may want to reject NOAA's explanation. That would be your choice.
However, you will still be left with the problem of explaining how the CFCs
get into the stratosphere. Because "thousands of measurements have been made
from balloons, aircraft, and satellites demonstrating that the CFCs are
actually present in the stratosphere." Rejecting an explanation of how it
got there does not explain away the fact that it is there. According to
figure cq-1.gif, CFC-11 is present in concentrations of about 400 parts per
trillion in the lower atmosphere and up to about 15 km, where it starts to
drop slowly until it reaches 0.01 parts per trillion at about 32 km. The
same figure shows the stratosphere starting at about 12 km altitude.
We know that it is SOP in creation science to decide beforehand what can and
cannot be and then ignore all evidence to the contrary. But we are not going
to let you pull that one off, Bill. You cannot simply wish it all away; the
real world does not work like that.
CFCs are in the stratosphere. If you reject NOAA's explanation of how it
gets there, that still leaves us with the question of how it gets there.
Please offer your own explanation of how it gets there. If you also cannot,
which is definitely within the realm of possibility (as is the possibility
that NOAA's explanation of how is incorrect), that does still leave us with
the directly observable fact, verified thousands of times, that CFCs are in
the stratosphere.
Nu?
The next question would be, why is this such a hot topic for you? It has
moved you to do something you almost never do with creationist topics; you
actually responded! Why does it motivate you so? This has nothing to do
with evolution, so why did you write about it in your newsletter? And why
did you have a speaker on the subject? Did he offer any connection between
the ozone layer and evolution/creation? Or was he trying to blame evolution
for ozone depletion, like Henry Morris and others have tried to blame
evolution for practically every existing evil in the world?
#########################################################