Ozone layer is healing
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A hole has opened in the ozone layer above the Arctic and looks set to become the largest on record for the region.
Maps of the Arctic Hemisphere from NASA’s Ozone Watch, created with satellite data, show the hole growing in size from late last year until now.
The hole looks set to break up in the coming weeks but not before setting a new record in ozone layer depletion at the North Pole. The ozone layer is a protective shield in the Earth’s stratosphere which absorbs some of the ultraviolet radiation reaching us from the sun. Without the ozone layer, it would be nearly impossible for anything to survive on the planet.
In Antarctica, the thickness of the ozone changes with the season. The freezing winters lead to high-altitude clouds combining with ozone-damaging chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), that have been lingering in the atmosphere for decades, to thin out the layer.
This year, unusually cold temperatures and powerful winds formed a “polar vortex” in the Arctic, creating the frigid conditions that have led to a vast ozone depletion, about three times the size of Greenland