Friday, June 29, 2007. 4:00 pm. Posted by zbreits.
The extra CO2 molecules in the atmosphere should not block the UV light from burning your skin.
CO2 does not absorb the UVA or UVB radiation that we typically accocaite with sunburning. This is because CO2 does not undergo large enough electronic transition to absorb this wavelength of light.
This means the UV radiation should just pass through the CO2 and get to you.
Things that are UV active are generally conjagated ogranic compounds such as benzene. However, I wouldn't suggest using benzene to block UV light
Friday, June 29, 2007. 4:05 pm. Posted by zbreits.
Aniother thing that is really good at absorbing UV radiation is teh nucleotides and nucleic acids that make up your DNA. When these base pairs absorb too much UV light, the H-bonds that hold them together will be dissrupted and the DNA will not fuction correctly. Usually this mellfuction will cause the cells to die and your skin will peel off, but sometimes the mutated DNA can replicated and cuase basd DNA and bad cells to grow. This can lead to Cancer.
Remember the sunscreen
the Z
Friday, June 29, 2007. 4:10 pm. Posted by zbreits.
I think overall, when it comes to global warming and sunburn, we are definatley head in the wrong direction. You should see an increase in the amount of sunburn.
This is obviously because the depletion of the O3!!! It was our god given sun umbrella and now all our CFCs have catalyzed the destruction of the Ozone.
It would have happened anyways but not this soon.
Oh well, it will just cause humanity to find alternate living habitats in the future.
Monday, July 2, 2007. 10:52 am. Posted by Josh.
Wow Z! Thanks for the great explanations! A lot of the stuff I may mention here is just conjecture and I'm always open to scientific information supporting or disproving any of my theories.
So is the destruction of the ozone, through CFCs a completely seperate issue from global warming?
Monday, July 2, 2007. 4:09 pm. Posted by zbreits.
The destrustion of the Ozone and global warming could be considered separate, or at least their relationship considered negligable.
The Ozone is only good at stopping UV light, which only makes up a small portion of the total irradiance from the sun. So, now we can say that with less O3 we will get more UV light hitting the earth's crust (a small increase in an already small portion). Most of this small amount will be reflected back into space. Some (a small amount of a small amount, of a small amount) may be absorbed by the earth and add heat NRG into the earth. Therefore the earth will have to irradiate some extra IR NRG to maintain the same temp. And we all know that is were the CO2/greenhouse/global warming thing comes into play.
Monday, July 2, 2007. 4:10 pm. Posted by zbreits.
cont.
However in my opinion, the effect of the increased amount of UV rays that make it through the depleted Ozone can be considered negligable and should not be used in relation to eachother.
The reason I brought up the Ozone was becasue we were on the topic of sunburn, and hence, UV absorption.
Monday, July 2, 2007. 4:17 pm. Posted by zbreits.
In the intial article, you said something to the effect of: we are putting so much CO2 in the air.
I was just wondering if it is your opinion that this is the cause for global warming.?.?
And also, Do you know what/who is the major contributor to CO2 in the atmosphere? What percent is from Humans? And what is the percent of CO2 in the atmosphere?
the Z
Monday, July 2, 2007. 11:35 pm. Posted by Josh.
The multi-national scientific committee that is studying Global Warming, stated in its last report that there is a 95% chance that Global Warming is from human causes. Additionally, the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth shows some strongly correlated data that would lead me to believe that, yes, humans are a major cause in this scenario.
I don't have the numbers on how much CO2 is currently in the atmosphere, but I'm sure it could be found on the web.
