MessageToEagle.com - First observations of springtime losses of ozone over Antarctica were reported by scientists
(J. C. Farman, B. G. Gardiner, and J. D. Shanklin) in 1985 and published in the journal Nature.
In 1986, the first demonstrations of the ozone hole - a regional-scale Antarctic phenomenon - were collected and
demonstrated by NASA scientists using satellite data from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and the Solar
Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV) instrument to demonstrate that the ozone hole is .
The status of the ozone layer through satellite observations since the 1970s, beginning with the TOMS sensors
on the Nimbus satellites. The latest-generation ozone-monitoring technology, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI),
is flying onboard NASA’s Aura satellite.
Artist's rendering of AURA in orbit
According to recent sensor data report on urope’s MetOp weather satellite, the hole over Antarctica in 2012 was the
smallest in the last 10 years.
Satellites show that the recent ozone hole over Antarctica was the smallest seen
in the past decade. Long-term observations also reveal that Earth’s ozone has been strengthening following
international agreements to protect this vital layer of the atmosphere.
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Ozone distribution over the South Pole from July to December during the years 2011 (left) and 2012 (right).
The 2012 ozone hole duration, geographical extension and depth was much smaller than that of 2011. Ozone loss over the South Pole
is displayed at the bottom (the bold dark line indicates the ozone loss for 2012 and the grey line for 2011). The ozone maps were
generated by the assimilation of GOME-2 total ozone data into the model TM3DAM. GOME-2 is carried by Eumetsat’s MetOp mission.
Credits: KNMI
The instrument continues the long-term monitoring of atmospheric ozone started by its predecessors on the ERS-2
and Envisat satellites.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, an ozone hole has developed over Antarctica during the southern spring –
September to November – resulting in a decrease in ozone concentration of up to 70%.
Ozone depletion is more extreme in Antarctica than at the North Pole because high wind speeds cause a
fast-rotating vortex of cold air, leading to extremely low temperatures.
Under these conditions, human-made chlorofluorocarbons – CFCs – have a stronger effect on the ozone, depleting
it and creating the infamous hole.
Over the Arctic, the effect is far less pronounced because the northern hemisphere’s irregular landmasses and
mountains normally prevent the build-up of strong circumpolar winds.
Reduced ozone over the southern hemisphere means that people living there are more exposed to cancer-causing
ultraviolet radiation.
International agreements on protecting the ozone layer – particularly the Montreal Protocol – have stopped the
increase of CFC concentrations, and a drastic fall has been observed since the mid-1990s.
South Pole Ozone
Time-series (1996 to 2012) of total polar ozone mean values over the months of September, October and November as measured by GOME, SCIAMACHY and GOME-2 flown on ERS-2, Envisat and MetOp-A, respectively. Smaller ozone holes are evident during 2002 and 2012. The maps were generated using total ozone columns
derived with the GODFIT algorithm (BIRA/IASB, RT Solutions Inc.), which has been consistently applied to the three different satellite instruments.
Credits: BIRA/IASB
However, the long lifetimes of CFCs in the atmosphere mean it may take until the middle of this century for the
stratosphere’s chlorine content to go back to values like those of the 1960s.
The evolution of the ozone layer is affected by the interplay between atmospheric chemistry and dynamics like
wind and temperature.
If weather and atmospheric conditions show unusual behaviour, it can result in extreme ozone conditions – such
as the record low observed in spring 2011 in the Arctic – or last year’s unusually small Antarctic ozone hole.
To understand these complex processes better, scientists rely on a long time series of data derived from observations
and on results from numerical simulations based on complex atmospheric models.
Although ozone has been observed over several decades with multiple instruments, combining the existing observations
from many different sensors to produce consistent and homogeneous data suitable for scientific analysis
is a difficult task.
Within the ESA Climate Change Initiative, harmonised ozone climate data records are generated to document the
variability of ozone changes better at different scales in space and time.
With this information, scientists can better estimate the timing of the ozone layer recovery, and in particular
the closure of the ozone hole.
Chemistry climate models show that the ozone layer may be building up, and the hole over Antarctica will
close in the next decades.
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(J. C. Farman, B. G. Gardiner, and J. D. Shanklin) in 1985 and published in the journal Nature.
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UPDATE: This article has now been updated with additional information from NASA including images and video!
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