Part I : Hydroxyl research (bringing climate change to a standstill) and repairing the Ozone layer

I am getting tired of all negative environmental predictions, it seems as if in general we are gloating at all the 'misery' that would be awaiting us. A lot of doomsday scenarios are unfounded, but opinions expressed at environmental conferences and that come out are repeated to infinity although reality differs from those opinions. That is understandable. An environmental awareness has emerged that is unprecedented and every 'good' citizen wants to contribute to a better living environment for the present, but also for posterity. That is a noble endeavor, but let's stay balanced and not pump endless bins of money and subsidies into conferences that only sing aound he same old song.

For that reason, as a counterbalance I have decide to write some encouraging articles about the environment, articles that are representations of studies that are taking place today.

                                                  Domesday book 1086

For whatever reason, many people tend to lean and dote on negativism and that is certainly not only the case in recent years. William the conqueror had already a study conducted in 1085 to illustrate the state of affairs in England and Wales. We know from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle hat the Liber de Wintonia, as it is also known in Latin, was finished in 1086 The medieval spelling for doomsday was Domesday at that time.

It was not an uplifting document and Richard FitzNeal wrote in Dialogus de Scaccario (circa 1179) That the book could better be called the last judgement .. 'because the conclusions,' says Fizneal, 'as the last judgment are unchangeable.'

What can I add to this? At most, that England and Wales still exist.

The hydroxyl research:

'Can the key to reversing climate change lie under Antarctic waters? Scientists will drill 800ft (= 243 meters) deep holes in ice sheets to find a mysterious 'cleaning agent' that could rid the air of harmful greenhouse gases.

Ten scientists will be living in a temporary 'ice lab' at Law Dome near Casey in 2019 for three months in 2019 as part of the first hydroxyl mission in the world.

Researchers will drill ice cores to measure pre-industrial atmospheric levels of hydroxyl, which has never been done before.

They believe that this natural 'atmospheric cleaning agent' could clean the air of harmful trace gases.'

The project, led by the Commonwealth scientific and industrial research organization (CSIRO), tries to understand the natural processes that remove these 'other' gases from climate change from the atmosphere.

The 'Law Dome Hydroxyl' project is led by atmospheric scientist Dr. ir. David Etheridge and Dr. Vas Petrenko from the University of Rochester in the US.

'Hydroxyl (OH) is a naturally occurring, highly reactive molecule that plays an important role in the atmosphere as a' natural air cleaner 'by destroying greenhouse gases such as methane and industrial chemicals that break down ozone,' says Dr. Etheridge.

'But we do not understand how much has been removed by hydroxyl, which is of fundamental importance to be able to predict the levels of gases that influence the climate and the ozone layer in the future.

"Knowing how hydroxyl varies in the atmosphere and the role it plays is the key to solving those issues," says Etheridge.'

'To measure the pre-industrial atmospheric hydroxyl levels, the team will go to Law Dome more than one hundred kilometers from the Casey research station in Australia and set up a laboratory on the ice cap for three months.

'Law Dome is the best place on the planet to get old air for this project, because the huge pace of snowfall quickly holds the air and preserves it for centuries at a depth,' claims Dr. Etheridge.

However, the project is a huge challenge because of the small amounts of material that researchers need to analyze and analyze.

'The melting of hundreds of kilos of ice produces about 30 liters of air, but each sample of air will only produce a handful of the molecules that we want to detect and measure,' says Dr. Etheridge.

Then, after an analysis, a plan of approach can be made to clean up harmful gases.'

'What do other recent studies say?

A special edition of Nature has published a series of studies on how monitoring Antarctica from space provides crucial insights into its response to a warming climate.

These are their most important findings:

Since 1992, three trillion tons of ice have been lost on Antarctica

The Antarctic Ice Sheet lost about three trillion tons of ice between 1992 and 2017, according to research conducted by the University of Leeds.

This figure corresponds to an average sea level rise of about eight millimeters (1/3 inch), with two-fifths of this increase alone in the last five years.

The finds mean that people in coastal communities are more likely to lose their homes and become so-called climate refugees than previously feared.

In one of the most complete photos of the ice sheet changes in Antarctica so far, an international team of 84 experts has combined 24 satellite surveys to deliver the results.

It discovered that Antarctica lost ice until 2012 at a steady rate of 76 billion tons per year - a contribution of 0.2 mm (0.008 inches) per year to sea level rise.

Since then, however, there has been a strong, threefold increase.

But during the last ice age, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was smaller than today, which is an 'eye-opener'.

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