over from methane to water vapor. I referred to that, too, in the literature. This was discussed in a seminar last year.

CHANGES IN ULTRAVIOLET RAYS

In addition, there will be changes in the ultraviolets reaching the surface. There was testimony on that before the House last week, the possible effects of changing that.

Certainly, if one changes ozone, one will certainly change the ultraviolets reaching the surface. The reason is that ozone provides the cutoff of the solar spectrum for all wavelengths short of about 3,000 angstroms.

If you look at the spectrum outside atmosphere, which we are able to do, you find there a distribution of energy with wavelengths, which I give in detail in a reference, again in the Scientific American in 1964, but part of this energy never gets down to the surface.

Much of the speculation on live information is that we were in the sea until there was enough oxygen liberated from the ocean to form a layer of protective ozone.

OZONE IN THE STRATOSPHERE

There is no questions if you look at the sun spectrum from the surface you see a cutoff from the spectrum. There is no energy at wavelengths short of 3,000 angstroms. The reason for this is the presence of ozone in the stratosphere.

If you remove the ozone or change it, then you can change the ultraviolet by, usually, a factor greater than 2. There is no question

about that.

The question is where the debate comes in are on the other parts of the hypothesis.

There are other items which are related to the pollutants, the oxides of nitrogen, hydrocarbons and so on, and some of these have been discussed in the MIT summer study which has been published, and which is, again, referred to in my statement.

CONVERSION OF SUBSTANCES TO PARTICULATES

Two of the points which come out of this: First of all, if we introduce substances which convert to particulates, then we know we can produce temperature changes in the stratosphere of a fairly large size. Los Angeles smog is a case where particulates originate from gases. One does not actually put in the particulates in Los Angeles. One ends up with a fine haze which is called smog. There is a very good question as to whether or not we can produce a smog in the stratosphere by similar processes if we put in similar constituents.

One of the points I would like to make is that we don't know enough about the composition of the stratosphere to say whether or not we will produce smog. We are turning up constantly items which were unknown a few years ago.

NITRIC ACID IN THE STRATOSPHERE

Last year, nitric acid was discovered in the stratosphere. We didn't know about that 3 years ago.

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Chairman ELLENDER. What was the origin of that?

Dr. NEWELL. No one knows where the nitric acid comes from. This is a very good doctor's thesis problem which I am sure people are thinking about right now. So we are at the age of uncertainty. There are some theories on this, but it is no use discussing them unless they have a firm base.

I might say we have a fairly firm basis for where the ozone comes from. It comes from molecular oxygen. Sunlight between 1,800 and 2,200 angstroms disassociates molecular oxygen. That is O2. It associates it into O and O combines with O2 to get О3.

2

That is where the ozone comes from. This has been studied for 40 years. Professor Chapman suggested this in 1930. We have a fairly good idea of the ozone budget, how much is produced as a function of altitude and latitude, how it is transported, and so on.

Several of my students have hopefully contributed to that. I might say that the NOAA model at Princeton has borne out essentially what we said 10 years ago, what we said about the ozone, our understanding on that.

INTRODUCTION OF PARTICULATES IN STRATOSPHERE

My point about particles is, and it is also referred to in the testimony, if one introduces small particles into the stratosphere these particles can absorb solar radiation in the visible portion of the spectrum. What happens is the stratosphere gets warm. There is a graph in my testimony on page 42, which shows the temperature change in the stratosphere by the introduction of small particles from a volcanic eruption.

I might say that we don't know how these small particles got into the stratosphere. We don't know whether they were introduced as gases and then converted into particles, which is one hypothesis put forth in 1888.

We don't know whether they were small particles introduced directly as small particles. The point is that again there is uncertainty. But the certainty is shown in the graph, that the temperature increased by 5° to 8°, depending on where one was, and it is a function of latitude and season. But the temperature change persisted for several years. I make the point in the testimony that this aerosol problem is a region where we again need a lot more work and we need to study the joint interaction between ozone and the other air constituents and the oxides of nitrogen.

CONTAMINATION IN THE ATMOSPHERE

I might make an aside at this point just to comment. It may sound odd to be commenting about contamination of the stratosphere. Supposing someone had come to a hearing like this 30 or 40 years ago and suggested that in 20 or 30 years there would be a possibility that there will be smog in Los Angeles, there will be a haze. Put yourselves in the position, if you can, of considering that testimony then. It would have probably sounded very unusual, and it may even have been discounted at the time.

The fact is that we now have the smog, that we have to tell schoolchildren that they are not allowed to go out at school to play, they are not allowed to exercise because of the smog. This is a physical formation in the atmosphere which was not anticipated several years ago, even 20 or 30 years ago.

We now have much better information about the stratosphere. We know that we are planning to put in as much water vapor or comparable amounts as nature has put in. If we had known this factor about the smog in Los Angeles 30 years ago, we might have taken action. to reduce the pollutants at that stage.

POLLUTION DETERRENT

Chairman ELLENDER. Are efforts being made now to prevent that by putting devices on automobiles?

Dr. NEWELL. There are some efforts now; sir, yes.

Chairman ELLENDER. Don't you think the same thing might be feasible if you produce these airplanes? Is it your theory that if these airplanes fly at the height you state, that it may pollute the air? Would there be some possibility of modifying the engine to prevent that?

Dr. NEWELL. Right, sir. I did ask a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT could we put on devices to the SST which would remove all the water vapor so we don't have a problem as far as water vapor. Other people may ask to remove the oxides of nitrogen. It is then asking the plane to bring back to earth more mass than it takes up in fuel, because the amount of water vapor that is produced when one burns fossil fuel is a little bit greater, so the combined sum is greater by mass than the mass of the fuel that is taken up, because of the fact that one takes in air and converts some of the oxygen in the air into the water vapor.

DUMPING OF FUEL

Senator MAGNUSON. That is a little like the subsonic flights. In the early days of the jetplane they used to dump a certain amount of residue fuel rather than carry it with them. Now they decided, and we have it whipped, I think, that they are not going to do that, but carry it with them. It isn't much poundage, but it means something.

Dr. NEWELL. Yes. As you point out, in this case it isn't much poundage, but in the case of the SST we are talking about a poundage which is comparable to the amount of the fuel.

Senator MAGNUSON. I didn't know that.

DELICATE BALANCE IN STRATOSPHERE

Dr. NEWELL. I have been assured by mechanical engineers that this is the state. If one wanted to bring back the water vapor we know that the water vapor is equal in amount in mass to fuel. This would penalize the whole operation.

Certainly, if there were a closed-cycle engine, if we could produce a closed-cycle engine in the stratosphere, then I would have no objection to flights in the stratosphere on that basis. My objection is that we are adding components to the stratosphere in amounts comparable to the amounts already there, and this is a very dangerous thing to do. The

stratosphere is a very delicate region. It is a very delicate balance between temperature, chemical reactions

Senator MAGNUSON. Well, that is your opinion, yes.

Dr. NEWELL. I would say there would probably be unanimous opinion that it is a delicate balance between the components.

Senator MAGNUSON. I just want to ask one question. I apologize, but I do have to go. Do you know Dr. Fred Singer?

Dr. NEWELL. Yes.

Senator MAGNUSON. Do you know him well?

Dr. NEWELL. No, sir.

Senator MAGNUSON. Well, you have some respect for his professional ability, do you not?

Dr. NEWELL. Yes, sir.

Senator MAGNUSON. And Dr. Will Kellogg?

Dr. NEWELL. Yes, sir. He is here right now.

Senator MAGNUSON. I won't ask you that last question, then. They are going to testify tomorrow. We do appreciate your coming because we want to get all the information we can on this and see what we can find out about it.

They have opinions, too.

Dr. NEWELL. I would be happy to hear them.

Senator MAGNUSON. I am sure none of us are going to write that doctor's thesis unless it is Senator Proxmire.

Senator PROXMIRE. Senator Magnuson will do it before I do.

ANSWERS TO UPPER ATMOSPHERE PHYSICS PROBLEMS

Senator CASE. I wonder if I can ask one question before I have to go. We shall read this with as much intelligence as we can muster. That is all I can say.

Dr. NEWELL. I am sorry it is complex.

Senator CASE. You can't help that, You are a beautiful witness. Tell us in summary this: Are these questions that can be answered, in your judgment, in some fashion, after taking enough time and putting in enough work?

Dr. NEWELL. Well, Senator Case, in my opinion, they certainly can be answered over a long time period. When I started looking at upper atmosphere physics problems it was 1960, and we are still answering some of the questions I asked more or less in the first months that I entered upper atmosphere physics.

We were able to answer some in the last few weeks that I couldn't answer then. But in my judgment, it will be another 10 years before we can answer the questions pertaining to, say, the details, what will happen in detail if we add water vapor in an amount comparable to the amount already there in the stratosphere.

The way in which we will have to go about these is first of all, we will have to make more observations of the components of the stratophere, all the components, not just a crash program to spend 6 months making a few minor measurements.

AERIAL AND OZONE MEASUREMENTS

And along those lines, I note that just last week there was a satellite from NASA which was funded, which was going to be making meas

urements of aerosols and ozone in the stratosphere, from which funding has been withdrawn.

If there are no satellites-I am giving that as one example-if there are no satellite measurements in the stratosphere in the next 10 years, we may still have some of these problems in the next 10 years. They depend on detailed observations, not just at one place but all over the globe.

WATER VAPOR MEASUREMENTS

The water vapor measurements are made in Washington, D.C., by the Naval Research Laboratory. They make one observation a month, from a balloon rising to about 100,000 feet. That is pitifully inadequate for monitoring the stratosphere. We should be making measurements at a dozen places over the globe every 2 or 3 days to pin down the distribution.

OZONE MEASUREMENTS

We have a similar situation in ozone. There are six balloon flights every week. I think five are in Europe and one is at Bedford at the Air Force-Cambridge Research. They only go to 30 kilometers.

We have essentially 15 rocket flights of ozone between 30 and 80 kilometers. We get about one new flight a year. The first three flights were made by Dr. Johnson at the University of Texas in 1947 with the captured V-2's. There have been very few measurements since.

RATE OF ACCUMULATION OF DATA

The rate at which we are accumulating data in the upper atmosphere is such that I think it will be at least 10 years before we can give intelligent answers which are agreed upon by various leaders of the profession to these questions I am raising.

Senator CASE. Can the rate be speeded up?

Dr. NEWELL. There are certain things that you just can't speed up. One is the intellectual process, the interplay between different scientists, the interplay between scientists and new observations.

One tends to speed up things by taking data in different form, by taking new observations. A host of new satellites might tend to speed things up.

I am not advocating these. I am just saying there is a possibility that if one went into observing the upper atmosphere in the same way that we went into, say, observing the radiation belts because we were worried about the possible hazards to the astronauts, then this would tend to speed things up.

There would be more people in the field and more interchange between the scientists.

At the present time, things are slowing down rapidly in this field. I am not propagating the field, I am just making the statement. Things are slowing down. The number of students involved has to be necessarily fewer each year because a number of people have had fixed budgets. The number of people working on this at leading universities have fixed budgets.

So I would say we are tending to slow down a bit in this field. It could be speeded up. I wouldn't make a better estimate than 10 years, but it could be speeded up if we put more funds into it. There would be an expense involved, training new people, taking new observations.