In sci.geo.meteorology Marvin wrote:
Brian Sandle wrote in
:

year flights ozone
84 5 324
85 9 303
86 2 305
87 0 307
88 2 305
89 5 311

Through 4 years from 86 to 89 the average was only baout 2 flights
per year and the level recovered a bit.

[snippage of some very long-winded drek]
There is a bit much work in it for me, but a partial correlation
could be done with rocket launches (R) solar activity (S) and ozone
level (O).

If the partial correlation between S and O partialling out R is no
different from the non-partial correlation of S and O, then R could
be assumed less likely to be causal.

Lets talk about correlations, and trying to calculate interdependencies
when you have a dataset of 6 points.

I took the shuttle flight count, and let it ferment a bit in my local
events database. After a while, i found this *perfect* match.
Glenlea Primary school, soccer wins for the B-team.
year Goals
1983 6
1984 5
1985 9
1986 2
1987 0
1988 2
1989 5

According to your excellent logic, the rate of shuttle flights not only
affects the ozone concentration, but also THE PERFORMANCE OF LOCAL
SCHOOLKIDS!

I didn't say affects, I said correlated. Then look for any cause. In terms of
affecting in your example goals is not wins as both sides might vary. I don't
know if sunspots affect concentration in such a way as to worsen attack or
defense more than the other. A lot of things are correlated to solar
activity.

Surely this must be some nefarious plot, as the facts speak for themselves!
How else could there possibly be such a perfect correlation between the
shuttle flight tempo and the games won per year?

Do us all a favor, and chill a bit.

It looks like chilling of the stratosphere could be a problem of water the
rockets
put there.

And remember that 6 data points is NOT
enough to run a statistical correlation test with any level of accuracy.

That small dataset was my reply to the question about the crash time.

The data I used was:

year flights ozone

80 0 324.00
81 2 323.77
82 3 323.19
83 5 323.92
84 5 323.55
85 9 303.10
86 2 312.27
87 0 306.91
88 2 305.31
89 5 311.35
90 6 303.19
91 6 312.40
92 8 308.49
93 7 301.23
94 7 310.12
95 6 305.86
96 7 306.88
97 8 291.31
98 5 302.63
99 3 292.26
00 5 300.25
01 5 304.91


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In sci.geo.meteorology I R A Darth Aggie wrote:
On 2 Feb 2004 07:30:28 -0600,
Brian Sandle , in
wrote:

+ So if ozone is correlated to the solar cycle, and shuttle flights
+ are correlated to ozone, then shuttle flights must be correlated to
+ the solar cycle - more troubles so fewer flights in higher solar
+ activity?

Welcome to the Correlation Trap. You can probably find a correlation
between solar activity and your favorite stock market. Does that mean
you should use the solar cycle to plan your investment strategy?

Probably. Also in predicting weather.

What do you think of my example on another article using partial correlation
to get some idea of likely lack of causation?


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In sci.geo.meteorology Lloyd Parker wrote:
In article ,
Brian Sandle wrote:

The Shuttle solid fuel rockets, producing the chlorine compounds and
alumina, are active in the higher altitudes after the booster drops off, I
thought. The pollutants injected high up will experience more intense UV
suddenly en masse than halocarbons trickling up.

The SRBs _are_ the solid-fuel rockets.

Which by now I have figured. Aren't these newsgroups for learning?

But I think my point still holds. There is more intense UV where the SRBs
stop, than there is where the most of the ozone is.

Now I see it is the water-producing rockets still operating at higher
altitude. That reduces the UV and we know that when the sun is less active,
producing less UV, that there is less ozone. Though if a mass ejection
reaches earth that destroys ozone.


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February 2, 2004

Brian Sandle wrote:

What about the earth systems?

You might consider going to your nearest world class universities and libraries
and enrolling in or auditing the necessary classes, to develop the necessary
skills, so that you can develop the necessary theoretical and computational
models to answer your question, which is a good one, rather than just moaning on
and on about it at the usenet school of science, which is not a particularly good
one, because, we intend to start injecting a LOT of water into the upper
atmosphere, in lieu of carbon dioxide and chlorine, and you are indeed correct,
the results of that particular hypothesis is not very well understood, not near
as well understood as the effects of carbon dioxide and chlorine, fluorine and
bromine, etc ...

Lots of nice 64 bit processors starting to coming out, write yourself some
software.

Thomas Lee Elifritz
http://elifritz.members.atlantic.net

In sci.environment Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:
February 2, 2004

Brian Sandle wrote:

What about the earth systems?
[...]
Lots of nice 64 bit processors starting to coming out, write yourself some
software.

My observation is that the physical scientists do not get involved in
statistics in the way social scientists do. I thought to get talking about
correlations to see what understanding could be engendered.

So what do you think of the physical scientists' amount of learning
from partial correlations?


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In article , Brian Sandle writes:
In sci.environment Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:
February 2, 2004

Brian Sandle wrote:

What about the earth systems?
[...]
Lots of nice 64 bit processors starting to coming out, write yourself some
software.

My observation is that the physical scientists do not get involved in
statistics in the way social scientists do. I thought to get talking about
correlations to see what understanding could be engendered.

So what do you think of the physical scientists' amount of learning
from partial correlations?


Physical scientists, and in particlular atmospheric scientists
have learned time after time that placing
too much faith in correlations give you nasty surprises. If you just
correlate a big enough number of variables you will always get a few
good correlations just by chance. Just correlating "everything" will get you
so many hits that it is not worthwile to explore this pathway.

If you have a hypothesis that there could be a connection, as in your case
between space shuttles and ozone depletion, making a raw correlation
make some more sense. Before doing the correlation, and if not then,
certainly straight after, you should think about whether it makes any physical
sense. After all the correlation may have been a fluke, or there
may be a underlying cause to both of your variables.

As for your hypothesis, I think the latter is the case.
The increase in space shuttle flights and use of CFC and other halocarbons have
just come at more or less within the same time frame.

Now as to your physical explanations.

Part 1: Solid fuel rockets emit chlorine compunds in the stratosphere,
which depletes ozone.

True, but the problem with that argument is that this amount
is quite small compared to other emission types.

Which brings up argument 2: The emissions are relatively more important
since they happen in situ.

This argument does not hold. The chlorine emitted near the ground
are not different from the chlorine emitted from the solid fuel rockets,
so whether something is transported across the tropopause or emitted
in situ have no effect on the total ozone depletion. Thus, since the
amount of chlorine transported from below is much higher than the emissions
from the space shuttle, the contributions from the space shuttles
are small.
From http://www.business.gov/busadv/faq.cfm?catid=113

" In a 1990 report to Congress, NASA found that the chlorine released
annually in the stratosphere (assuming launches of nine Shuttle missions and
six Titan IVs--which also have solid rocket motors--per year) would be
about 0.25 percent of the total amount of halocarbons released
annually worldwide (0.725 kilotons by the Shuttle 300 kilotons from all sources)."

Not zero however and in a sci-fi scenario with tens of launches a day
it would certainly have a large effect. This scenario is however unthinkable
economically.



Øyvind Seland

In sci.environment \yvind Seland wrote:
In article , Brian Sandle writes:
In sci.environment Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:
February 2, 2004

Brian Sandle wrote:

What about the earth systems?
[...]
Lots of nice 64 bit processors starting to coming out, write yourself some
software.

My observation is that the physical scientists do not get involved in
statistics in the way social scientists do. I thought to get talking about
correlations to see what understanding could be engendered.

So what do you think of the physical scientists' amount of learning
from partial correlations?


Physical scientists, and in particlular atmospheric scientists
have learned time after time that placing
too much faith in correlations give you nasty surprises. If you just
correlate a big enough number of variables you will always get a few
good correlations just by chance. Just correlating "everything" will get you
so many hits that it is not worthwile to explore this pathway.

You are speaking of putting a whole lot a variables into the Pearson
correlator and looking at what correlations are significant at the 0.05 0.01
level &c. Then I suggest to go to partial correlation.


If you have a hypothesis that there could be a connection, as in your case
between space shuttles and ozone depletion,

I was interested, so I put the two ranks side by side adn thougth there might
be a correlation.

making a raw correlation
make some more sense. Before doing the correlation, and if not then,
certainly straight after, you should think about whether it makes any physical
sense. After all the correlation may have been a fluke,

Yes, with the significance level at 0.05, as I had, that means that if the
thing were done 20 times such a result would be expected once, by chance.

or there
may be a underlying cause to both of your variables.

This is where I understand partial correlation to be useful. The ozone may or
may not be causally affected by several variables: solar UV, shuttle flights
are the two we have looked at so far in this.

So now *your* ordinary correlation table looks like:

ozone flights UV HC
ozone 1 0.4 ? ?
flights 0.4 1 ? ?
UV ? ? 1 ?
HC ? ? ? 1

As for your hypothesis, I think the latter is the case.
The increase in space shuttle flights and use of CFC and other halocarbons have
just come at more or less within the same time frame.

All those things are changing together. One technique of finding out is to do
actual experiments in which two variables are physically held constant and
what happens to the other two is examined. That is quite often possible in
physical sciences, though rather less so in earth sciences on the whole.

So we want to see if partial correlation can tell us anything about that.

The partial correlation calculation takes into account that the variables are
all changing together then looks at the situation if one or more are
artifically held constant mathematically. A lot more figures turn up.

Holding one variable constant would produce another table like the above,
with perhaps the same but more likely different figures. I suggested holding
flights constant. But each of them could be held, giving in total four new
tables.

(Then it is possible to hold two constant at once giving another four tables)

I am not very versed in this, but I understand that if a partial correlation,
mathematically holding a variable constant, is no different from the simple
correlation of the two variables, then it is unlikely that the held variable
is causal.

Now as to your physical explanations.

Part 1: Solid fuel rockets emit chlorine compunds in the stratosphere,
which depletes ozone.

They don't until they have been activated. They emit HCl. Someone said
earlier in the thread that HCl does not react with ozone.

see:
http://ess.geology.ufl.edu/HTMLpages.../lecture4.html

* Polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) provide surfaces for reactions that
convert chlorine compounds from relativly inert forms to reactive
species that destroy ozone in sunlight.
* PSCs condense in the frigid cold of the stratospheric polar vortices
and provide heterogeneous surfaces for reactions that convert the
reservoir species to more reactive ones.
* The most important reaction is between the two chlorine reserviors:
ClONO2 + HCL - Cl2 + HNO3
* The molecular chlorine produced is in the gas phase and is photolyzed
by even weak sunlight to give chlorine radicals - active chlorine -
that can catalyze ozone destruction.

And there is more trouble related.

True, but the problem with that argument is that this amount
is quite small compared to other emission types.

The rockets also produce a lot of water which may be used to produce the
PSC.

Which brings up argument 2: The emissions are relatively more important
since they happen in situ.

This argument does not hold. The chlorine emitted near the ground
are not different from the chlorine emitted from the solid fuel rockets,

From near the ground comes HCl form of chlorine, as from rockets, too, but
also halocarbons, which do not come from rockets.

The HCl from the sea and volcanoes (near the ground) is emitted (except for
large volcanoes) into the troposphere and washed out by rain. It does not go
across the tropopause.

Yes, both the halocarbons and the rocket HCl end up producing active chlorine
under UV activation, but the question is the level/altitude at which it is
being produced, and the understanding of the whole system mechanism.

An idea is to look at time of launch. Then see what heppens when the rest of
the hours of sunlight have had their effect, maybe with stratospheric cloud
present, added to a night and what happens the next morning.

so whether something is transported across the tropopause or emitted
in situ have no effect on the total ozone depletion.

Excuse me but is that tested or hypothesis?

Thus, since the
amount of chlorine transported from below is much higher than the emissions
from the space shuttle, the contributions from the space shuttles
are small.
From http://www.business.gov/busadv/faq.cfm?catid=113

" In a 1990 report to Congress, NASA found that the chlorine released
annually in the stratosphere (assuming launches of nine Shuttle missions and
six Titan IVs--which also have solid rocket motors--per year) would be
about 0.25 percent of the total amount of halocarbons released
annually worldwide (0.725 kilotons by the Shuttle 300 kilotons from all sources)."

Not zero however and in a sci-fi scenario with tens of launches a day
it would certainly have a large effect. This scenario is however unthinkable
economically.


Maybe a threshhold is being approached an it does not take that much.

Some of the Arianes also have powder strap-ons, and I don't know about
Russian and Chinese rockets.

But what about the water?





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In sci.space.policy Paul F. Dietz wrote:
Brian Sandle wrote:

The correlation is not a guess.

You're right. It's more of an idiotic canard.

When the sun rises there is not the UV in its rays which there is
later in the day. The sunlight travels through rather more
atmosphere to arrive at earth's surface after rising or before
setting than it does at midday.

An object outside the earth's atmosphere will experience full UV
power for nearly the whole day.

I suggest that the HCl/stratospheric water/alumina cloud mix from a
rocket trail experiences a different UV time/wavelength distribution
from halocarbons rising just above the tropopause. Therefore I would
expect possible variations in chemical species/distribution. Maybe
catalysts are being formed.

http://ess.geology.ufl.edu/HTMLpages.../lecture4.html

[...]
* The most important reaction is between the two chlorine reserviors:
ClONO2 + HCL - Cl2 + HNO3

* Equally important is the fate of the nitric acid (HNO3). It remains
within the PSCs, effectively sequestering the nitrogen family of
compounds that would otherwise react with the active chlorine to
reform chlorine nitrate.
* This process, called denitrification, allows the photochemical
reactions that destroy ozone to run effectively for a long time
without termination.
[...]


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Brian Sandle wrote:

I suggest that the HCl/stratospheric water/alumina cloud mix from a
rocket trail experiences a different UV time/wavelength distribution
from halocarbons rising just above the tropopause. Therefore I would
expect possible variations in chemical species/distribution. Maybe
catalysts are being formed.

If these hallucinations continue to bother you, perhaps you should
seek medical help.

Paul

Brian Sandle wrote:
Øyvind Seland wrote:


Part 1: Solid fuel rockets emit chlorine compunds in the stratosphere,
which depletes ozone.

They don't until they have been activated. They emit HCl. Someone said

Yes, I know, but when you are looking at total ozone depletion
a simplification is too look at the amount of halocarbons release
in the stratosphere. Most of the chlorine released from CFC etc, reacts
rapidly into reservoir species HCl and ClNO3.


The rockets also produce a lot of water which may be used to produce the
PSC.

The water vapor released by the rockets are quite small 10-4 times
the natural and wator vapor is generally not the restricting factors for
PSC unless we are talking about orders of magnitude more than the rockets
release. The increase in water may have some other, albeit minor effects
on ozone though.

The chlorine emitted near the ground
are not different from the chlorine emitted from the solid fuel rockets,

From near the ground comes HCl form of chlorine, as from rockets, too, but
also halocarbons, which do not come from rockets.

I was thinking about the chlorine atoms themselves. More exact
description / hypothesis. The effects on ozone from HCl are the same
regardless of whether the HCl molecules comes from the space shuttle
or from produced from CFCs if the production happen to be in the same
height as the shuttle emissions.

There is a certain height variance, with the ozone depletion efficiency
being most efficient at 15-20 km height, but not so large that
the relatively small contribution from the space shuttle should be
the most important factor regardless of the height you put it into.

so whether something is transported across the tropopause or emitted
in situ have no effect on the total ozone depletion.

Excuse me but is that tested or hypothesis?

As long as we are talking about the same height, yes it is tested.
The comparison
with tropopause transport was an approximation, which for this purpose
should be more than exact enough. The former hold from basic physics.
There are no imeasurements showing a noticeable different isotopic
composition between the chlorine in rocket fuel compared to CFCs,
or for that matter any major effect on the isotopic composition
on the reactions themselves.


An idea is to look at time of launch. Then see what heppens when the rest of
the hours of sunlight have had their effect, maybe with stratospheric cloud
present, added to a night and what happens the next morning.


There are no PSCs over Florida.

The increase in space shuttle flights and use of CFC and other halocarbons have
just come at more or less within the same time frame.

All those things are changing together. One technique of finding out is to do
actual experiments in which two variables are physically held constant and
what happens to the other two is examined. That is quite often possible in
physical sciences, though rather less so in earth sciences on the whole.

Why bother? There is already a perfectly good hypothesis. The ozone
concentration decrease because of an increase in the concentrations
of halocarbons. Good correlation, measurements of concentrations
and few needed asumptions of thresholds. (There is one measured
threshold connected to temperature and PSCs, which has to be taken into
account when calculating "the ozone hole")

And to emphasis the earlier mentioned webpage, no it is not a new idea,
and people have been worried. There are no indications though that this
is an important part of the problem.




Øyvind Seland