Saving our Skins: Introduction

Atmospheric Reflections from a Lauder Stargazer

I’ve written a short book (about 65k words) titled “Saving our Skins”, which summarises the contribution to humanity of atmospheric research at Lauder over the last 40 years. I published it chapter by chapter over a 6 month period here in my UV & You area on Substack. It’s also now available at Amazon in 3 versions depending on your pocket.
Updated September 12, 2021

The title plays on the dual problems of:

• ozone depletion -  which would have led to dramatic increases in UV and skin cancer and

• climate change -  where I discuss the drastic actions still needed to save our collective bacon.

The atmosphere of planet Earth can be thought of as its skin. A very thin skin. If the planet was reduced the size of a basketball, the scaled-down atmosphere would then be just 0.3 millimeters thick [1]. Much less than the depth of the dimples on the basketball. No wonder that skin is proving to be so fragile in the face of mankind’s offences against it!

Cover image: Long shadows near sunset at NIWA’s Lauder Atmospheric Research Station, photographed on December 14, 2015 from a drone looking west towards Thomsons Gorge in the Dunstan Range. Photo credit: Dave Allen, NIWA

My original intention was to have the book published and become a multi-millionaire from its proceeds. But I’ve had a bit of a rethink after asking my journalist son who can’t be named to run his eye over it for me. It took him several months to finish it. But he did encourage me to put it on Substack. So, I’ll do that for posterity if nothing else. There are 22 chapters and a couple of epilogues, which I’ll post here on Substack at weekly intervals.

The book introduces a few of my friends and colleagues and tells about the things I did with them both inside research and outside. It’s a personal view of critical environmental issues interspersed with some lighter moments. My aim has been to accurately convey the science, while at the same time making it accessible to the non-specialist. I’ve tried to avoid technical terms and scientific jargon. Where that’s not possible, I have attempted to define the terms in simple layman’s language, with footnotes and hot-links to web pages for more specialised information. I have also included a glossary of terms and abbreviations, but have resisted the urge to include references, as I feel this would create too much of a distraction.

I expect that different readers will gain different insights. If you’re less interested in the underlying ozone science, you may still find interest in its surrounding history, or even my personal journey through that history. Some may even find it useful as a simplified guide to understanding the science behind current atmospheric research issues. Others may find it a cure to insomnia.

I apologise in advance for what some call my “warped” sense of humour, which I prefer to describe as being a little “off-beat”. I also apologise to any co-workers who feel they haven’t received due credit. At the end is a list of acknowledgements and a bibliography that I hope will redress that to some extent. Most of the quantitative statements are backed up by my published works, which can be found by searching Google Scholar with appropriate keywords.

Please go to the NIWA website for further information about our ozone and UV research.

This first instalment here on Substack includes the Forward, some Background Information about me. Most chapters are between 2000 and 3000 words, so easily readable in a few minutes.

Click on these links for the Table of Contents and the Glossary

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[1] The Earth’s radius is 6400 km, and the equivalent depth of the atmosphere is 8 km. So, for a basketball of diameter 24 cm, the corresponding thickness would be 24 cm x 8/6400 = 0.03 cm = 0.3 mm. Of course, the gravitational attraction of real objects that size is too small to sustain any atmosphere at all. The air molecules would all escape to space. Even the moon is too small for that.

Foreword

“Saving our Skins” is an insider’s account of the most successful international environmental action ever undertaken: the Montreal Protocol on Protection of the Ozone Layer. My career in ozone research began years before the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole and continues to the present day. I bring a first-hand experience to the entire story through my research and my involvement in Scientific and Environmental Assessments of Ozone Depletion. It’s the story of the small part that the research that my colleagues at Lauder New Zealand played in bringing about the success of the Montreal Protocol. A story that’s played out against the backdrop of the ever-increasing threat from climate change and its interactions with the ozone story.

I think it’s fair to say that my tale includes an authoritative account of the science; but I’ve tried to convey it in language accessible to the non-specialist. The science story is intertwined with my personal view of life in an isolated rural community contrasted with life amid the bustle and stimulation of Oxford University, over a career in atmospheric science that spans four decades.

About Me

I’m currently an emeritus scientist with New Zealand’s National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) based at their atmospheric research laboratory Lauder Central Otago, where I was previously section leader, and principal scientist responsible for radiation research. Now retired from full time employment, I still live in nearby Alexandra. A New Zealander by birth, I hold physics degrees from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, and the University of Oxford in the UK where I earnt a D Phil in atmospheric physics. Through my long research career, I’m considered a world leader in understanding the causes and effects of ozone depletion in the atmosphere and have authored more than 150 research papers published in the peer reviewed literature. In addition, I’ve been the lead author - since the early 1990s - for several Scientific Assessments into both the Science of Ozone Depletion, and the Environmental Effects of Ozone Depletion that have been mandated under the terms of the Montreal Protocol on Protection of the Ozone Layer. I now run a science consultancy practice called The Tophouse Ltd, from which I’ve acted as a UV consultant to several clients, including L’Oréal, Paris and I continue to be a regular science adviser to New Zealand’s Environmental Science and Health agencies. Through my wide experience as an educator and communicator, I think I’ve developed the gift of being able to engage with the public in simple terms to make complex issues more digestible. But I’ll let you be the judge of that.

In the first chapter of “Saving our Skins” I describe the events surrounding my introduction to Lauder about 40 years ago. I was 29 years old.

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