WMO Admits Ozone Hole ‘Third Largest Ever’

REALLY!

WMO, the UN’s climate and weather organization, reported today a record-size Antarctic Ozone Hole (AOH); however, it said there was no cause for alarm as it should shrink again!

[Be sure to familiarize yourself with the AOH narrative. See links to blog posts on the subject listed below—Ed.]

WMO Antarctic Ozone Bulletin no. 4, 2015

The area of the region where total ozone is less than 220 DU, the so-called “ozone hole area”, averaged over the 30 worst consecutive days has reached 26.9 million square kilometres according to data from NASA. This places 2015 as the third largest ozone hole on record according to this criterion. One has to go back to 2006 and to 2000 to find a larger ozone hole area for this time period. A stable and large vortex, concentric around the south pole and characterised by low temperatures explains why 2015 experiences the largest ozone hole since 2006. […]

The figure shows the partial ozone column between 12 and 20 km altitude above the South Pole station. This is measured with electrochemical ozonesondes launched on balloons from the ground. The small light blue dots show all observations done from 1991 to 2014. The medium blue circles show the measurements from 2006, the year that saw the most severe ozone hole on record. The orange diamonds show data from 2015. Although the 2015 minimum is not as low as in 2006, the 2015 observations still show some of lowest partial columns measured throughout the history of the Antarctic ozone hole. This figure has been provided by Bryan Johnston and Kirk Thoning at the Global Monitoring Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Source: WMO Antarctic Ozone Bulletin no. 4, 2015.

On 5th August the NAT area reached a maximum for the season with 28.2 million km2, which is higher than the maximum reached in recent years. One has to go back to 2009 to find a higher PSC area maximum (28.4 million km2). Also in September and so far in October, the NAT area has been well above the long-term mean. Since mid October, the NAT area has oscillated around the long term maximum for this time of the year.

WMO Antarctic Ozone Bulletin no. 4, 2015 (PDF Download Available). Available from: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/283301743_WMO_Antarctic_Ozone_Bulletin_no._4_2015 [accessed Oct 29, 2015].

Related Links

• Massive Ozone Hole Remains Over Antarctic Posted on October 20, 2011
• Now the planet has two ozone holes! October 3, 2011
• Ozone Hole, Fracking and Other Issues April 22, 2011
• Arctic Ozone at Record Low: Scandinavia is Toast April 5, 2011

• Arctic Ozone Loss Ahoy! March 30, 2011
• UV exposure has increased over the last 30 years on March 17, 2010
• Antarctic Ozone Depth Down to 100 DU October 8, 2008

• Ozone Holes! September 6, 2009
• The Largest Antarctic Ozone Hole September 17, 2008
• Why NASA Doctors Ozone Hole Data? September 21, 2007
• NASA: The Conjuring Continues  September 20, 2007

• NASA Practices Extreme Voodoo September 18, 2007
• NASA’s Re-Doctored Data: More “Acceptable!” September 12, 2007
• NASA’s Ozone Hole Data Doctored? September 10, 2007

More Crops Destroyed by EWE in Nine U.S. States

Drought and deluge, winterkill and severe freeze destroy or damage crops in nine states

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has declared crop disasters in 147 counties across nine states—Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas—due to extreme weather events including drought, excessive rain, flooding, severe freeze and winterkill.

Crop Disaster Areas: Designation # 1  –  Drought 
USDA has designated 29 counties in Texas as crop disaster disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by a recent drought. Those areas are:

• Texas. Angelina, Borden, Brown, Callahan, Coke, Coleman, Concho, Fisher, Garza, Glasscock, Hardin, Howard, Kent, Liberty, McCulloch, Mitchell, Nolan, Polk, Reagan, Runnels, San Jacinto, Scurry, Sterling, Taylor, Tom Green, Trinity and Tyler counties.

Crop Disaster Areas: Designation # 2  –  Excessive Rain and Flooding
USDA has designated a total of 51 counties across three states—South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina—as crop disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by excessive rain and flooding that occurred from October 1, 2015, and continues. Those areas are:

• South Carolina. Abbeville, Aiken, Allendale, Anderson, Bamberg, Barnwell, Beaufort, Berkeley, Calhoun, Charleston, Chester, Chesterfield, Clarendon, Colleton, Darlington, Dillon, Dorchester, Edgefield, Fairfield, Florence, Georgetown, Greenville, Greenwood, Hampton, Horry, Kershaw, Lancaster, Laurens, Lee, Lexington, Marion, Marlboro, McCormick, Newberry, Orangeburg, Richland, Saluda, Spartanburg, Sumter, Union, Williamsburg and York counties.

• Georgia. Burke, Columbia, Richmond and Screven counties.

• North Carolina. Brunswick, Columbus, Mecklenburg, Robeson and Union counties.

Crop Disaster Areas: Designation # 3  –  Drought
USDA has designated 7 counties in Mississippi and Arkansas as crop disaster disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by a recent drought. Those areas are:

• Mississippi. Bolivar, Coahoma, Quitman, Sunflower, Tallahatchie, and Tunica counties.

• Arkansas. Phillips County.

Crop Disaster Areas: Designation # 4  –  Winterkill
USDA has designated 14 counties in Minnesota as crop disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by winterkill that occurred from April 25, 2015, through Sept. 10, 2015. Those areas are:

• Minnesota. Becker, Beltrami, Benton, Cass, Clearwater, Crow Wing, Douglas, Hubbard, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Otter Tail, Stearns, Todd and Wadena counties.

Crop Disaster Areas: Designation # 5  – Severe Freezes
USDA has designated 4 counties in Colorado as crop disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by severe freezes that occurred from April 2, 2015, through April 19, 2015.

• Colorado. Delta, Gunnison, Mesa, and Montrose counties.

Crop Disaster Areas: Designation # 6  – Drought
USDA has designated a total of 42 counties in three states—Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma—as crop disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by a recent drought. Those counties are:

• Arkansas. Arkansas, Ashley, Bradley, Calhoun, Chicot, Clark, Cleveland, Dallas, Desha, Drew, Faulkner, Garland, Grant, Hempstead, Hot Spring, Howard, Jefferson, Lee, Lincoln, Lonoke, Monroe, Montgomery, Nevada, Ouachita, Perry, Phillips, Pike, Polk, Prairie, Pulaski, Saline, Scott, Sevier, St. Francis, White, Woodruff and Yell.
  

• Mississippi. Bolivar, Coahoma and Tunica.

• Oklahoma. Le Flore and McCurtain.

All counties and parishes listed above were designated natural disaster areas on Oct. 28, 2015.

Crop Disasters 2015

Beginning January 7, 2015 USDA has declared crop disasters in at least 3,500 counties Those states are Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.

• About 99 percent of the 2015 crop disaster designations have been due to drought so far this year.

Crop Disasters 2014

In 2014, USDA declared crop disasters in at least 2,904 counties across 44 states. Most of the designations were due to drought.

Those states were:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan. Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. [FIRE-EARTH has documented all of the above listings. See blog content.]

Notes:
i. USDA trigger point for a countywide disaster declaration is 30 percent crop loss on at least one crop.

ii. The counties designated as agricultural disaster areas, as listed above, include both primary and contiguous disaster areas.

iii. Some counties may have been designated as crop disaster areas more than once due to multiple disasters.

iv. The U.S. has a total of 3,143 counties and county-equivalents.

Related Links

• Drought, Deluge Destroy Crops in 12 States October 22, 2015
• Drought, Freeze… Kill Crops in 173 Counties across 7 States October 16, 2015
• Drought Destroys or Damages Crops in Three U.S. States October 8, 2015
• Crop Disasters Declared across Multiple Areas October 1, 2015
• Drought
• Agricultural Disasters Index