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   Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:48:19 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

   The more I learn about atmospheric chemistry, the more terrified and angry I am about satellite companies' blatant lack of consideration for how their actions will harm the atmosphere. I hope this gets a lot of press. Great work by a whole team of scientists, including @astrokiwi.bsky.social!

   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-025-01098-6.epdf

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:48:18 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

     in reply to

     Coincidentally, I'm "giving" a pre-recorded talk at the American Astronomical Society meeting later today about atmospheric pollution from satellites (and I didn't even get to include this excellent paper because I recorded the talk a few days ago).

     This talk is short (12 min) and directed at professional astronomers, so there's not as much background info as usual, but maybe it's a helpful summary of where things stand now?

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbx_O0RTJlI

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:48:19 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

     in reply to

     Co-author Michele Bannister posted a thread about this paper yesterday on bluesky: https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:f3jxtgz7tnwvzkpgzb6wsqqj/post/3lr7qoirmxr27

     Paul Cantrell and Joe Ortiz repeated this.
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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Jun-2025 01:48:19 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

     in reply to

     My takeaway: Satellite launches are undoing the recovery of the ozone layer that should be happening now that CFCs are banned. And this study doesn't even take into account metal deposition from reentries, which might be even worse!

     When I teach climate change in my astro classes, I always give the recovery of the ozone layer as an example of how countries can work together to fix a giant problem (Montreal Protocol). I guess satellite companies are now destroying that too.

     Steve's Place repeated this.