the uncertainty of now

I recently read up on the actual mechanism of ozone hole creation. The most important aspect is the creation, in the cold and dark winter months, of a vortex above a pole that develops a core of very cold air. In this cold air zone polar stratospheric clouds can form in the lower stratosphere. During the winter the vortex is so stable that the air in polar latitudes can essentially be sealed off from air at the lower latitudes.

The polar stratospheric clouds and the segregated cold area both act to generate (or liberate) chlorine containing molecules which have been shown to aid depletion of ozone levels.

Most of the chlorine in the stratosphere is bound up in resevoir molecule hydrogen cloride (hydrochloric acid) and chlorine nitrate. Liberation of active chlorine is usually a slow process but in the presence of the ice particles, as are present in the icy-cold polar clouds, the two resevoir molecules can react together to form a chlorine molecule which can be photodissociated into chlorine atoms.

The cold atmosphere also stabilizes a ClO dimer which apparently is readily photolysed to yield to free chlorine atoms.

Chlorine atoms destroy ozone in the following reaction:

Cl + O3 -> ClO + O2

Note that while the polar clouds are developed during the dark cold months, the ozone depletion cannot take place until the sun comes out. The sun also brings warmth which breaks up the vortex, allows ozone rich air to rush in, destroys the polar clouds and allows the ozone layer to be regenerated.

Now, temperatures are often cold enough in the antarctic to cause ozone depletion but not usually as bad in the arctic. But last year New Scientist indicated that arctic temperatures were the lowest they had been in 50 years. Fortunately, by March temperatures were rising. Still, an arctic ozone hole is feared for the near future.

That being said, CFC producing appliances have decreased (though not as quickly as hoped )
and hopefully, by 2050 both the antarctic hole and the stressed arctic ozone layer will be recovered.

I am off to Waterloo in such a short time. I have a key to a house, my bedding has been sent ahead of me and I am desperately reading the papers I was supposed to do months ago. I have been watching a lot of movies (the warriors, thirteen, rounders). Okay, maybe that is not a lot of movies. But it certainly felt like a lot.

Got bloodied up fighting with azim, rob and jon (mainly rob) while ostensibly tossing a disc. We have made plans to continue with our traditions well into adulthood. I feel that I must push for this - if I am to be a renaissance man, I need friends in multiple disciplines. So with azim, rob, godfre and jon I have psychology, biology and ecology, art and music criticism, and law and politics. I provide chemistry and economics. Together we could be unstoppable. I should remind them about this.

I have been thinking about the real reasons for man's history of subjugating women. For some reason I felt that I had ideas I believed in, but when I was forced to actually write out my feelings I discovered that I had no real ideas or that my ideas were conflicting and easily perverted. If anyone has any good ideas I would love to hear them. I will make a stab at writing my collected ideas here soon. Nothing like presenting your badly conceived contentious ideas in an easily accessible and never deleted medium.