An unusual ozone hole opens over the Arctic1 min read
There is a strong reduction in ozone concentrations in the Arctic. German researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Potsdam have noticed it and their colleagues from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) who monitor data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite have confirmed it.
Everything has been explained in an article published on the European Space Agency (ESA) website. In detail, ESA states that unusual weather conditions, such as freezing temperatures in the stratosphere, would have precipitated gas levels, causing a small hole in the atmospheric layer.
The record-breaking ozone hole that opened on the Arctic in March 2020 should close in mid-April.
The ozone layer extends into the stratosphere, approximately between 10 and 50 kilometers. In order to protect it, the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987 to progressively reduce the use of gases that destroy ozone, the so-called chlorofluorocarbons (CFC).
It will take decades for these gases to completely disappear from the atmosphere. But thanks to the Montreal Protocol, the ozone hole in Antarctica, which forms every year in the fall, is at an all-time low.
Actually, according to the scientific assessment of the 2018 information relating to the mission reports, the ozone layer is recovering at a rate ranging from 1 to 3% per decade since 2000. If this trend proves stable, ozone can recover in the hemisphere north for 2030 and in the southern hemisphere for 2050. Instead, in the polar regions, we will have to wait for 2060
Source: European Space Agency (ESA)
Featured image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
