«First signs of healing in the Antarctic ozone layer:
September ozone hole has shrunk by 4 million square kilometers since 2000.»
The team found that
the September ozone hole has shrunk by more than 4 million square kilometers — about half the area of the contiguous United States — since 2000, when ozone depletion was at its peak.
Not exact matches
Using satellites, ground - based instruments, and
ozone - measuring weather balloons, they showed that since 2000, the
September hole shrunk by 4 million square kilometers — an area bigger than India.
In
September, the
ozone hole is at its largest because the cold winter months coupled with the returning daylight permit stratospheric cloud formations that do the most damage to the
ozone layer.
The
ozone hole, depicted in red, begins forming every year in early
September, when the spring sunlight ends Antarctica's long, dark winters.
Weather balloon measurements and other data showed that last
September, the
ozone hole was 4 million square kilometers smaller than its peak size.
The images above show the Antarctic
ozone hole on September 16 (the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer) in the years 1979, 1987, 2006, and
ozone hole on
September 16 (the International Day for the Preservation of the
Ozone Layer) in the years 1979, 1987, 2006, and
Ozone Layer) in the years 1979, 1987, 2006, and 2011.
The researchers tracked the yearly opening of the Antarctic
ozone hole in the month of
September, from 2000 to 2015.
Solomon and her colleagues believed they would get a clearer picture of chlorine's effects by looking earlier in the year, at
ozone levels in
September, when cold winter temperatures still prevail and the
ozone hole is opening up.
The Antarctic
ozone hole forms and expands during the Southern Hemisphere spring (August and
September) because of the high levels of chemically active forms of chlorine and bromine in the stratosphere.
The largest
ozone hole ever seen has opened up over Antartica, a sign that
ozone - depleting gases churned out years ago are just now coming to their peak, NASA scientists reported
September 8, 2000.
Their measurements, focusing on a time period in
September each year — during which time the colder temperatures in the atmosphere promote the reactions that destroy
ozone so that the
hole is opening up — show that since 2000, the
hole has shrunk by 1.7 million square miles, an area more than half the size of the continental United States.
Figure 2: Total column
ozone loss relative to pre-
ozone hole conditions in the 1970s in percent (left) and total number of molecules (right)(1 DU = 2.69 molecules / cm2) averaged over 2010 - 2019, during
September for the Southern Hemisphere and March for the Northern Hemisphere.
Seventeen years after the
Ozone Hole was discovered, NASA Science News reported «Peering into the Ozone Hole» (Fig 2) asking a serious question [5]: «Image of the record - size ozone hole taken by NASA satellites on September 9,
Ozone Hole was discovered, NASA Science News reported «Peering into the Ozone Hole» (Fig 2) asking a serious question [5]: «Image of the record - size ozone hole taken by NASA satellites on September 9, 2
Hole was discovered, NASA Science News reported «Peering into the
Ozone Hole» (Fig 2) asking a serious question [5]: «Image of the record - size ozone hole taken by NASA satellites on September 9,
Ozone Hole» (Fig 2) asking a serious question [5]: «Image of the record - size ozone hole taken by NASA satellites on September 9, 2
Hole» (Fig 2) asking a serious question [5]: «Image of the record - size
ozone hole taken by NASA satellites on September 9,
ozone hole taken by NASA satellites on September 9, 2
hole taken by NASA satellites on
September 9, 2000.
Suddenly on
September 25, 2002, a broad accumulation of
ozone briefly overpowered that year's
ozone hole.
In the early 1980s, scientists discovered a
hole in the
ozone layer that forms over Antarctica during the Southern Hemisphere's spring months, from
September to November.
Models suggest that both the loss of
ozone (the
ozone hole that occurs in
September / October every year) and increases in greenhouse gases lead to an increase in frequency of this climate pattern.