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Add to Preferred SourcesThe annually occurring ozone hole over the Antarctic is one of the largest and deepest in recent years. Analyses show that the hole has reached its maximum size.
The 2020 ozone hole grew rapidly from mid-August and peaked at around 24 million square kilometres in early October. It now covers 23 million km2, above average for the last decade, and spreading over most of the Antarctic continent.
WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch programme works closely with Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service, NASA, Environment, and Climate Change Canada, and other partners to monitor the Earth’s ozone layer, which protects us from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun.
NASA’s Ozone Watch reports a lowest value of 95 Dobson Units recorded on October 1. Scientists are seeing signs that the 2020 ozone hole now seems to have reached its maximum extent.
The Montreal Protocol bans emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals. Since the ban on halocarbons, the ozone layer has slowly been recovering; the data clearly show a trend in decreasing the area of the ozone hole.
The latest WMO /UN Environment Programme Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion, issued in 2018, concluded that the ozone layer on the path of recovery and to the potential return of the ozone values over Antarctica to pre-1980 levels by 2060.
The large ozone hole in 2020 has been driven by a strong, stable, and cold polar vortex, which kept the temperature of the ozone layer over Antarctica consistently cold.
Original source: WMO