Is the Hole in the Ozone Layer Shrinking Because We Did Something Right? Sarah Parvini - TakePart
go to original December 20, 2013

For years, scientists have been baffled by the hole in the ozone layer and why the gap, which forms each year over Antarctica, continues to considerably change in size. While the area of the hole has ceased to grow much larger, the layer that shields the earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation is far from fully recovered, December research from NASA shows.

The ozone hole peaked in the last decade, waxing and waning in an area between 8.2 million square miles and 10.6 million square miles - roughly the size of North America. Researchers are attributing the latest decrease in the hole’s area to changes in the weather.

A group of scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., studied the changing chemical makeup of the hole and discovered that the relatively small area of last year’s hole - the second smallest in the past 20 years - was due to a natural variation in wind patterns, not an international agreement to stop using ozone-depleting chemicals.

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