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The dynamic process of creating and destroying ozone, however, can become modified by the introduction of chlorine into the cycle. Indeed, chlorine compounds have been found in the stratosphere where the creation of ozone takes place. Since CFCs cannot be measured in the stratosphere where the air-density is only a thousands of what it is on the surface, it is said that the existence of chlorine proves that the breakup of the CFCs is taking place in the stratosphere, since the CFCs are constructed of chlorine, fluorine, and carbon.
This leads to the second misrepresentation of fact, namely the proposition that all chlorine compounds in the stratosphere come from the breakup of CFCs chemicals by UV radiation. This is in fact the chief point in the ozone depletion theory for which the world wide production of CFCs products has been banned. The reality, however, is quite different.
Although no CFCs have actually been found in the stratosphere, the existence of vastly larger natural sources of atmospheric chlorine is well known to the scientific community, and has been conveniently ignored as a source for the chlorine in the stratosphere. These natural sources put 100,000 times as much chlorine into the atmosphere (650 million tons annually) than the theoretical maximum that the breakdown of the CFC compounds (7,500 tons annually) could produce if they ever got to the stratosphere and were immediately split apart there.
The reality is, that the theoretical amount of chlorine that could possibly be produced by the breakup of CFCs in the stratosphere, if the CFCs ever got there, would be so minute that it cannot be measured or in any way be proven to exist, yet this minuscule amount which cannot be proven to even get to the stratosphere, is said to have put the entire ozone system into danger. The fact is, that the existence of CFCs (assuming a homogenous distribution throughout the atmosphere) would be infinitesimal. The maximum pre-ban annual world production of CFCs has been 1.1 million tons, which adds up to a ratio of 1 part of CFCs for every 5 billion parts of air.
Regardless of the unprovable assumption that stratospheric chlorine is exclusively produced by the breakup of CFCs, stands the fact that the CFC compounds are not homogenously distributed throughout the atmosphere, but are very heavy compounds, four times as heavy as air, which gives them the tendency to settle into the ground rather than being lofted into the stratosphere to heights of 150,000 feet above the surface.
The ozone depletion theory is based on the assumption that the breakdown of CFCs is possible nowhere else on the planet, except in the stratosphere, so that all of its chlorine atoms are deemed to be deposited there, and no where else. This is another one of the main planks in the depletion theory. The fact is, CFCs are found on the bottom of the oceans, in the soils of the ground, in densities that can be measured and have been measured, but not in the stratosphere where they have not been measured or in any way been detected. These facts, however, are kept from the public, for they tend to refute the theory. In fact, the ozone/chlorine interaction theory, itself, is as thin as a soap bubble. It doesn't stand much of a scrutiny either.
According to this theory, a free chlorine atom has the natural ability to steal one of the oxygen atoms away from ozone, forming chlorine monoxide and and thereby turning the ozone back into a normal oxygen molecule. The newly formed chlorine monoxide in turn is reactive enough to absorb any free oxygen atom it can find, which, when absorbed, disassociates the chlorine again from its oxygen atom, producing free chlorine and normal molecular oxygen. The remaining residue of a free chlorine atom presents us with the same state that we started out with, but with one less ozone molecule, so the theory goes. Now the residue chlorine atom goes ahead and starts the cycle all over again, eating up ozone like a hungry demon, we are told.
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