#Ozone hole over Antarctic is largest, deepest in recent years

The annually occurring ozone hole over the Antarctic region has reached its maximum size — and is one of the largest and deepest holes in recent years, the World Meteorological Organization revealed Tuesday.

The 2020 hole swelled to about 8.9 million square miles – significantly more than twice the size of the US, the WMO said.

The WMO, along with the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service, NASA and Environment and Climate Change Canada, work together to monitor the Earth’s ozone layer — which protects its inhabitants from the sun’s scorching ultraviolet rays.

“There is much variability in how far ozone hole events develop each year,” Copernicus director Vincent Henri-Peuch said in a statement. “The 2020 ozone hole resembles the one from 2018, which also was a quite large hole, and is definitely in the upper part of the pack of the last 15 years or so.”

“With the sunlight returning to the South Pole in the last weeks, we saw continued ozone depletion over the area,” he added. “After the unusually small and short-lived ozone hole in 2019, which was driven by special meteorological conditions, we are registering a rather large one again this year.”

The particularly large size this year is a reminder to continue enforcing the 1987 international Montreal Protocol, which bans emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals, according to Henri-Peuch.

Some rogue operators have been illegally releasing such chemicals, according to Mashable.

Paul Newman, the Chief Scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told the outlet the size of the hole isn’t surprising considering the current concentration of these substances — but quite concerning.

“There’s no quick fix,” he said. “It’s going to be with us for many decades.”