A visual history of the ozone hole: a journey to the heart of science, technology and the global environment

Abstract

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jennifer Tucker and Martin Collins for their support, guidance and helpful suggestions, as well as anonymous reviewers for the valuable critical comments.

Notes

1. Hulme, “Problems with Making and Governing Global Kinds of Knowledge,” 558–64.

2. For the telling example of rocket photography, see: Edgington, “An ‘All-seeing Flying Eye’: V-2 Rockets and the Promises of Earth Photography,” 363–71.

3. Farman, Gardiner, and Shanklin et al., “Large Losses of Total Ozone in Antarctica Reveal Seasonal ClOx/NOx Interaction,” 207–10.

4. For a recent historical analysis of the ‘ozone hole’ metaphor, see: Grevsmühl, “Revisiting the ‘Ozone Hole’ Metaphor.”

5. Farman, “Life Story Interview,” transcript, 238.

6. Ibid., 238.

7. Ibid., 285.

8. Ibid., 286.

9. Ibid., 285–6.

10. See for instance: Lynch and Woolgar, Representation in Scientific Practice; Baigrie, Picturing Knowledge; Jones and Galison, Picturing Science, Producing Art; Coopmans et al., Representation in Scientific Practice Revisited.

11. Aspect developed in detail in: Merchant, ‘“He didn’t Go Round the Conference Circuit Talking About It’,” 39.

12. See: Shanklin personal archives, Cambridge, UK.

13. On the Keeling curve, see: Howe, “This is Nature; This is Un-nature: Reading the Keeling Curve,” 286–93.

14. See, for instance, the influential study by Porter, Trust in Numbers. For trust in images, see, for example: Daston and Galison, Objectivity.

15. Both notions have received considerable scholarly attention in the past. Robustness is discussed in detail in: Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons, Re-thinking Science; the concept of data friction is adopted from Edwards, A Vast Machine, a useful description of problems that arise during weather and climate data collection and their integration into global views.

16. One scientific report in particular accounts for the robustness of BAS’ ozone data: Farman and Hamilton, Measurements of Atmospheric Ozone at the Argentine Islands and Halley Bay, 1957–1972.

17. Howe, “This is Nature; This is Un-nature: Reading the Keeling Curve,” 286–93.

18. The ‘hockey stick’ controversy is documented here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/ (accessed on September 19, 2017).

19. F11 and F12 were used as aerosol propellants and in air-conditioners.

20. Solomon, “Stratospheric Ozone Depletion: A Review of Concepts and History,” 275–316.

21. Tufte, Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 15.

22. Stolarski, “A Hole in Earth’s Shield,” 283–89.

23. Shanklin, interview with the author.

24. See: Grevsmühl, “The Creation of Global Imaginaries,” 29–53.

25. Sullivan, “Low Ozone Level Found Above Antarctica,” B21.

26. Grevsmühl, “The Creation of Global Imaginaries,” 44.

27. Goddard Space Flight Center, Animated Atlas of TOMS Ozone: 1978–1988. Today, NASA’s ‘Ozone Watch’ Page distributes all relevant ozone images and videos: https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (accessed on September 19, 2017).

28. Cosgrove, “Contested Global Visions: One-world, Whole-earth, and the Apollo Space Photographs,” 270–94; see also: Jasanoff, “Image and Imagination,” 309–37; Grevsmühl, La Terre vue d’en haut, ch.6; Höhler, Spaceship Earth in the Environmental Age, ch.1.

29. For an American perspective, see for example: Dunaway, Seeing Green, 189 and 199. In Germany, the ‘ozone hole’ frequently made it into the influential news weekly Der Spiegel, it was part of many environmental scare stories in 1986 (such as an issue on the ‘climate crisis’) and even made it on the front cover in August 1987.

30. Maher, Apollo in the Age of Aquarius, 128–36.

31. By mid-century, ozone values are expected to return to ‘normal:’ WMO, Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2014.

32. McNeill and Unger, Environmental Histories of the Cold War; Hamblin, Arming Mother Nature; Turchetti and Roberts, The Surveillance Imperative.