I am sorry but you are so full of rhetoric that it seems impossible to discuss with you. Ozone layer is estimated to have appeared around 600 millions of years ago, while the origins of life are estimated to have occurred more than 3 billions of years ago. Life (mostly marine organisms) was literally there billions of years before the ozone layer even existed, which on itself instantly voids your assumptive claims. Water, especially salt water, has significant opacity to UV spectrum, especially UVC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_absorption_by_water#/media/File:Absorption_spec…
12:03 AM
@computercarguy UVB starts at 315 nm, UVC starts at 280 nm. And I repeat that the destruction of ozone layer due to CFC emissions would not be a singular event where it instantly goes down to zero, but rather a slow and gradual process. Do you understand that? Because it is important in the context of the question being asked there by OP, and otherwise I feel like I am wasting my time there. The destruction of ozone layer due to CFC emissions would not be a singular event where it instantly goes down to zero, but rather a slow and gradual process. If we did not stop producing and releasing …
15 hours later…
3:01 PM
@user47149, well, that's the great thing about evolution: thing changed. The same life forms that existed 3 billion years ago don't exist today. The simple fact remains that most of the current ocean's life depends on phytoplankton directly or indirectly, as I already showed. Also, you said that a lack of an ozone layer wound not be detrimental to life on earth because "all freshwater and marine life would do just fine", except that they won't.
And your own Wikipedia article shows that the absorption of UV by water is pretty weak. One of the articles I already shared showed that phytoplankton would be killed by that same UV due to them living near the surface where UV would not yet be absorbed. You appear to be reading the graph wrong, since it's infrared that has a high absorption factor, not ultra-violet.
I also said that the question didn't limit answers to simply "instant death" scenarios. Can you accept that? And the question asks about a "major calamity", which would most definitely include all surface life being lost.
You are the one that apparently is speaking in political rhetoric. I've posted reliable articles from actual researchers. If you want to call that "rhetoric", here's the definition of that word, if you want to rethink your accusation. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rhetoric
Even fishermen know that UV can penetrate water, which is why they use UV reactive lures. This article says it can penetrate even more than 300 ft in some lakes. in-fisherman.com/editorial/uv-light-on-ice-and-open-water/…
1 hour later…
4:33 PM
@computercarguy I "appear to be reading the graph wrong, it's infrared that has a high absorption factor, not ultra-violet", excuse me? Both IR and UV absorbances are significant. Compare it to visible light absorbance instead. Why are you comparing UV to IR, other than to artificially force a condescending suggestion of me supposedly reading the graph wrong?
@computercarguy Did you even read that article you are linking there? I did, and it is explicitly mentioning UVA radiation. Well, surprise, because the ozone layer is virtually transparent to UVA, much like it is to visible light, and thus ozone layer would not make the difference in this case. It is UVB and UVC that ozone layer is protecting us from.
@computercarguy Link to graph: of UV spectrum absorbance: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet#/media/…
@computercarguy It is true, but it is important to note what part of UV spectrum you are talking about. The most penetrating part of spectrum is UVA, which is the least harmful, and its flux is more or less independent from whether there is the ozone layer present or not. UVB, and certainly UVC, would never penetrate that deep.
@computercarguy It is of course your right to keep that vote and view things this way, much like it is my right to conclude your worldview to be highly influenced by a pro-NASA bias. And mind you, if that single instance of "a human prevented launching of missiles" wasn't the case, the human race might have been long extinct by today, so that is quite significant in my opinion.
@computercarguy Reporting a disaster, while certainly appreciated, is not even remotely the same as saving the whole Earth from said disaster. It is firefighters risking their lives while rescuing people from burning structures who rightfully get the credit for saving those people, and not the person who called the fire brigade to report the fire incident. See what I mean? I think you, analogously, are attributing way too much undeserved credit to NASA.
4:59 PM
@user47149, I was talking about the absorption of UV by water, which is this graph: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_absorption_by_water#/… That's a logarithmic scale, so there's about a 900x difference between IR and UV absorption. That's the comparison I was making and the only reason I brought up IR. The graph you just linked is absorption by the ozone layer, which supports the fact that the ozone layer is necessary to protect phytoplankton against UVB.
Also, reporting of disasters, like wildfires, is absolutely necessary for prevention and remediation. If we didn't have the ability to find the problems, we wouldn't be able to fix them as easily. As the old saying goes, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". So yeah, it's absolutely necessary to have the ability to find the problem, just as it is necessary for firefighters and other rescue workers dealing directly with the problem.
And if you are going to argue that avoiding nuclear war is a critical thing to prevent devastation to life on earth, then you are arguing that the elimination of surface life on earth is a major calamity, which is exactly the opposite of what you are saying when you talk about the ozone layer disappearing. You need to get your arguments aligned. Just because one happens instantly and one happens over time, it doesn't mean either one is less significant or disastrous than the other.
You are obviously coming from an anti-NASA bias. Yes, I can absolutely see the benefits of some of what NASA does. That doesn't mean I think they are infallible. Unfortunately, you apparently think they can't do anything good, which is a pretty hard stance and not going to go far on a science exploration forum.
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