Ozone hole grows this year, but still shrinking in general
The ozone hole over Antarctica got bigger this year, which is unusual
The Antarctic ozone hole last week peaked at a moderately large size for the third straight year — bigger than the size of North America — but experts say it’s still generally shrinking despite recent blips because of high altitude cold weather.
The ozone hole hit its peak size of more than 10 million square miles (26.4 million square kilometers) on October 5, the largest it has been since 2015, according to NASA. Scientists say because of cooler than normal temperatures over the southern polar regions at 7 to 12 miles high (12 to 20 kilometers) where the ozone hole is, conditions are ripe for ozone-munching chlorine chemicals.
“The overall trend is improvement. It’s a little worse this year because it was a little colder this year,” said NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Chief Earth Scientist Paul Newman, who tracks ozone depletion. “All the data says that ozone is on the mend.”
Just looking at the maximum ozone hole size, especially in October, can be misleading, said top ozone scientist Susan Solomon of MIT.
