Could it be the gas leaking from land fills "full" of dead refrigerators leaking the gas as their components rust through? While we monitor for methane (and trap), perhaps we should test for CFC11 too.

Somebody is engaging in clandestine production of Freon for electronics manufacturing, or refrigerators or air conditioners. My bet is it's North Korea but none of South Korea, China, or Mongolia is unlikely. The question is whether whoever it is will be greedy enough to get caught.

I didn't even need to read through to know that China was going to be the likely culprit. Although Da Schnieb is right and North Korea is a possible candidate, their manufacturing output is simply not sufficient to make such a vast difference. China's is.

Somebody is engaging in clandestine production of Freon for electronics manufacturing, or refrigerators or air conditioners.

I would expect a slight rise from all the old freon AC/refrigeration units reaching end-of-life and either being decomissioned improperly or just losing their freon content through leaks more often - but as the article notes: there's plenty of unregulated business activity in Asia.

CFC compounds are used for one thing cleaning flux residues off of photovoltaic cells in manufacturing, when the cell interconnects are soldered to make panels. These solvents are used because unlike ethanol/propanol etc. based solvents they do not contain water or leave hydrocarbon residues that would otherwise be trapped in the panel and cause degradiation over time.

The evaporating solvents are supposed to be captured, but when cheap sweatshops assemble the panels by hand they're just slopping the stuff around and it goes up the ventilation system.

https://www.astm....192S.htm

Solvents Used in Cold Cleaning

Fluorotrichloromethane (trichlorofluoromethane)—A dense, colorless liquid, highly volatile, nonflammable, and miscible with most organic compounds. It is used in mixtures where a fast evaporation rate is desired and in closed-loop flushing operations.

Trichlorotrifluoroethane (1,1,2-trichloro-1, 2,2-trifluoroethane)— A nonflammable, colorless liquid of high volatility. It is often used in cold cleaning formulations either alone or blended, and its lower solvency for synthetics makes it especially suited to the degreasing of electrical insulation and many plastics and elastomers.

It is also possible that manufacturers of solvents are "spiking" their product with illegal chemicals to improve their properties without telling their customers, or the customers simply don't care because nobody's checking anyhow.

My bad, I guess I shouldn't use all that Freon I saved up in the 80s.
It's all part of the conspiracy to destroy nature. =)

Somebody is engaging in clandestine production of Freon for electronics manufacturing, or refrigerators or air conditioners.

I would expect a slight rise from all the old freon AC/refrigeration units reaching end-of-life and either being decomissioned improperly or just losing their freon content through leaks more often - but as the article notes: there's plenty of unregulated business activity in Asia.

If you go check up on this you'll find that they accounted for spent refrigeration equipment. No, this is new production-- and it's against the Montreal Protocol. Someone's cheating.

Despite neither of us liking our conclusions and despite being from different hemispheres, @leetannant and I agree. This is almost certainly Chinese degreaser production for electronics.

I should also emphasize that I don't think this is government policy; corruption is rampant and if the Chinese authorities can be convinced they'll be lining people up against the walls and sending bills for bullets to their families. Embarrassing President Xi is inadvisable; remember the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times and come to the attention of the powerful."

we are in the 21st century. Surely we have the technology to produce ozone and put it back there