More good news for the ozone layer: according to data released by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams), this year the ozone hole over Antarctica, which forms every year around September and whose duration and extension depend on meteorological factors and the concentration of polluting substances, closed on 1 December, making it the least extensive and long-lasting since 2019.
the smallest since ’92. The ozone hole usually forms in September and closes around mid-to-late December. This year it opened relatively early, around mid-August, and reached its maximum extent in early September, when it measured around 21 million km2 (well below the 26 million km2 reached in 2023). NASA and NOAA ranked it as the fifth smallest since 1992. “All of this reflects the steady progress we see year after year in the recovery of the ozone layer thanks to the ban on ozone-depleting substances,” says Laurence Rouil, director of Cams.
The reasons for the negative data for the three-year period 2020-2023. This good news comes for the second year after a three-year negative period, during which the ozone hole was unusually large and long-lasting. The causes of these unusual data, recorded between 2020 and 2023, are not yet clear: hypotheses include exceptional events such as the strong Antarctic polar vortices of 2020, the Australian fires of 2019-2020, and the eruption of the Hunga Tonga underwater volcano in 2022.
The progress of the last two years, Rouil concludes, “should be celebrated as a reminder of what can be achieved when the international community works together to address global environmental challenges.”
