Day 011 - 12 Jul 94 - Page 77


     
     1        whether they call themselves an environmentalist or a
              scientist, may have thought that something was adverse.
     2        Do you know when the Nature article was published?  You
              said mid-80s, can you be more precise than that?
     3        A.  Basically, my Lord, I do not have the information with
              me, but I can ensure that is.
     4
         Q.   You could give us the reference for the issue and its
     5        date?
              A.  I can give you the reference to the issue and the
     6        date.  I can do that as rapidly as I can.
 
     7   Q.   Going on a bit from that, when did you as a specialist,
              when were you first aware of any suspicion that CFCs might
     8        have a damaging effect on ozone?
              A.  In fact it was about the time when the British
     9        Antarctic survey reported.
 
    10   Q.   About the same time?
              A.  Yes.
    11
         Q.   Does it follow you had not heard before that of a
    12        suspicion that this was the case?
              A.  As far as I remember I had not heard very much about
    13        it, though I had heard vaguely about the Maliner and
              Roland paper.
    14
         Q.   Back in 1974?
    15        A.  Yes, but in fact I did not start to take an interest
              in until the mid-1980's, so I cannot comment in detail
    16        before that time.
 
    17   Q.   I am not asking an interest which might lead to you doing
              work on it yourself, but just an awareness that there was
    18        a real suspicion in someone's mind.
              A.  I would say that until the Maliner and Roland paper
    19        which was again in 1974, there had not been any scientist
              who had thought that the chlorine containing compounds
    20        were a great threat to the atmosphere. So we are talking
              about knowledge over the last 20 years.
    21
         Q.   Between 1974 and the Nature publication, did anything
    22        happen to remind you of this?  Was there any scientific or
              public attention drawn to it that you recall?
    23        A.  No.  I think the main point was that the shock that
              was caused by people who had been doing routine work in
    24        Antarctica was quite considerable.  It is worth noting
              that in fact the satellite instrument called total ozone
    25        mapping spectrometer was in operation at the time, in the
              latter part of the time that Farman's group were working 
    26        in Antarctica and had detected low levels ozone, but 
              because they believed that the ozone level could not be so 
    27        low on the basis of current knowledge, these were
              discounted until the ground base measurements were made,
    28        were release at which stage they looked at the satellite
              instrument date and realised it had been recording
    29        correctly.  So I would submit that if people had thought
              this was a possibility they would have been less keen to
    30        discount the satellite data initially.
 

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