Daily ozone hole images from Jul 1, 2012 to Oct. 19, 2012. The ozone hole max is on Sept. 22, 2012. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center – click image for movie
WASHINGTON — The average area covered by the Antarctic ozone hole this year was the second smallest in the last 20 years, according to data from NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites. Scientists attribute the change to warmer temperatures in the Antarctic lower stratosphere.
The ozone hole reached its maximum size Sept. 22, covering 8.2 million square miles (21.2 million square kilometers), or the area of the United States, Canada and Mexico combined. The average size of the 2012 ozone hole was 6.9 million square miles (17.9 million square kilometers). The Sept. 6, 2000 ozone hole was the largest on record at 11.5 million square miles (29.9 million square kilometers).
“The ozone hole mainly is caused by chlorine from human-produced chemicals, and these chlorine levels are still sizable in the Antarctic stratosphere,” said NASA atmospheric scientist Paul Newman of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Natural fluctuations in weather patterns resulted in warmer stratospheric temperatures this year. These temperatures led to a smaller ozone hole.”
Atmospheric ozone is no longer declining because concentrations of ozone-depleting chemicals stopped increasing and are now declining.
This image shows projected ozone concentrations for the year 2042, with (left) and without (right) the Montreal Protocol to reduce CFCs begun in the 1980s.
The ozone layer acts as Earth’s natural shield against ultraviolet radiation, which can cause skin cancer. The ozone hole phenomenon began making a yearly appearance in the early 1980s. The Antarctic ozone layer likely will not return to its early 1980s state until about 2065, Newman said. The lengthy recovery is because of the long lifetimes of ozone-depleting substances in the atmosphere. Overall atmospheric ozone no longer is declining as concentrations of ozone-depleting substances decrease. The decrease is the result of an international agreement regulating the production of certain chemicals.
This year also marked a change in the concentration of ozone over the Antarctic. The minimum value of total ozone in the ozone hole was the second highest level in two decades. Total ozone, measured in Dobson units (DU) reached 124 DU on Oct. 1. NOAA ground-based measurements at the South Pole recorded 136 DU on Oct. 5. When the ozone hole is not present, total ozone typically ranges from 240-500 DU.
This is the first year growth of the ozone hole has been observed by an ozone-monitoring instrument on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite. The instrument, called the Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite (OMPS), is based on previous instruments, such as the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet instrument (SBUV/2). OMPS continues a satellite record dating back to the early 1970s.
In addition to observing the annual formation and extent of the ozone hole, scientists hope OMPS will help them better understand ozone destruction in the middle and upper stratosphere with its Nadir Profiler. Ozone variations in the lower stratosphere will be measured with its Limb Profiler.
“OMPS Limb looks sideways, and it can measure ozone as a function of height,” said Pawan K. Bhartia, a NASA atmospheric physicist and OMPS Limb instrument lead. “This OMPS instrument allows us to more closely see the vertical development of Antarctic ozone depletion in the lower stratosphere where the ozone hole occurs.”
NASA and NOAA have been monitoring the ozone layer on the ground and with a variety of instruments on satellites and balloons since the 1970s. Long-term ozone monitoring instruments have included TOMS, SBUV/2, Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment series of instruments, the Microwave Limb Sounder, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument, and the OMPS instrument on Suomi NPP. Suomi NPP is a bridging mission leading to the next-generation polar-orbiting environmental satellites called the Joint Polar Satellite System, will extend ozone monitoring into the 2030s.
NASA and NOAA have a mandate under the Clean Air Act to monitor ozone-depleting gases and stratospheric depletion of ozone. NOAA complies with this mandate by monitoring ozone via ground and satellite measurements. The NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., performs the ground-based monitoring. The Climate Prediction Center performs the satellite monitoring.
To monitor the state of the ozone layer above Antarctica, visit:
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Quoted from the above article, “The ozone hole mainly is caused by chlorine from human-produced chemicals, and these chlorine levels are still sizable in the Antarctic stratosphere,”
If this was strictly true then shouldn’t ozone depletion be dependent on the chlorine levels and not on other things?
“The ozone hole mainly is caused by chlorine from human-produced chemicals, and these chlorine levels are still sizable in the Antarctic stratosphere,” said NASA atmospheric scientist Paul Newman”
This statement is far too strong for me. “The ozone hole mainly is caused…”? Everything I have read recently points in a different direction. How about “The ozone hole is affected by…”.
Surely this huge fluctuation over a short period can’t be due to CFCs. Maybe this is part of a 60 year cycle, too. What if it grows bigger 10 years from now? As per other causes of the hole, magnetic susceptibility of O2 and O3 is a factor of at least some part of it – I had an argument with the self-described ozone specialist Eric Grimsrud a week or so ago and, although he pooh-poohed it, his answer suggested he hadn’t considered it: O2 is paramagnetic and is attracted to a mag field, O3 is diamagnetic and is pushed away. It is likely that the hole never really disappears and maybe at its smallest you have essentially only the magnetic cause. Incidentally, this would suggest that the Ozone is made somewhat thicker over equatorial areas – maybe we could do with weaker sun block on our sun destination holidays. The Arctic shows lesser effects because of greater air circulation.
That movie is awesome! I love looking at real data. However data is minced and diced, it’s superior to computer model results like the results shown in the second graphic.
w.
I find it fascinating that the Ozone Hole was always over the Antarctic when most of the Chloroflorocarbons were produced north of the equator. Isn’t if amazing how the CFCs cleverly traversed the various Hadley cells and other currents to collect at the bottom of the world. (I suppose for the less astute, flowing “down hill” seems natural.) Why isn’t there a stupendously larger ozone hole over the arctic affecting the much more populated north?
The simple fact is that CFCs are heavier than air, do not collect in the upper atmosphere at all, and cannot overcome all of the atmospheric interference. The Antarctic Ozone Hole must be produced by some other effect — likely natural.
Phew!
“Natural fluctuations in weather patterns resulted in warmer stratospheric temperatures this year. These temperatures led to a smaller ozone hole.”
Wait up… temperature affected the ozone hole that much? Which has the bigger effect; chlorine or temperature? Seems like temperature to me. Give me back my inhaler propellant.
Why is there a thickening of ozone on the perimeter of the depletion?
Scientists attribute the change to warmer temperatures in the Antarctic lower stratosphere……………………………..
So all that CO2 is good for something then……..
sarc/
So, is this an unusual change, part of a long term (100, 200, 300-year) tend? I suspect we don’t have enough data to know any affect on the ozone layer and hole.
J Broadbent says:
October 24, 2012 at 2:02 pm
“Why is there a thickening of ozone on the perimeter of the depletion?”
O2 is paramagnetic and is attracted to the stronger field at the poles, ozone is diamagnetic and is repelled away from the field. Thank you JB I’ve been looking for some evidence of my explanation in arguments I’ve had with ozone holists.
J Broadbent says:
October 24, 2012 at 2:02 pm
“Why is there a thickening of ozone on the perimeter of the depletion?”
Because the ozone never enters the ozone hole proper. It descends from the stratosphere in the eyewall around the ozone hole and undergoes autodecomposition on the way down. The ozone hole is like an upside-down hurricane with the direction of flow in the eyewall down instead of up. The autodecomposition reaction is pressure dependent. At stratospheric pressures ozone is stable, but at surface pressures it decomposes rapidly even with no catalytic substances present (like the freons). The apparent thickening you see in the eyewall is from the satellite looking downward through the descending column of ozone. Since all of the ozone disappears in the eyewall, it really doesn’t matter how much of those nasty fluorocarbons are present; the ozone will all be stable until it enters the top of the eyewall and be gone at the bottom, either way. The size of the ozone hole has nothing to do with the flourocarbons, or with the ozone itself for that matter. It has more to do with atmospheric fluid dynamics than anything else.
This ozone hole business is an object lesson in credulousness. We credulous laymen will believe anything those god-like scientists tell us, because they are the anointed ones. I sincerely hope that between the ozone hole fiasco and the AGW mishmash we have finally learned our lesson.
There’s so many half truths about the ozone hole in this article that picking them all apart would take hours, much more time than I have on my hands at the moment. I will make to quick statements though:
1. Dobson predicted the ozone hole to exist purely from natural causes, and long before we had the instrumentation to measure it. He did so in the 1920’s or 30’s if memory serves. Today we measure ozone concentration in DU or Dobson Units, which are named after him. So to claim that the hole suddenly appeared in 80’s is purile nonsense. We only developed the instrumentation to accurately measure it in that time frame, and we found pretty much exactly what Dobson predicted.
2. I’ll make a prediction of my own. At some point in the next 30 years, the ozone hole will start to grow again and the alarmists will have to either admit we’ve been mostly measuring natural variation all along, or they’ll have to come up with a new boogey man to blame for it. Hey, I may as well make two predictions. I’ll predict that they come up with a new boogey man.
Don’t forget the Montreal Protocol was the test drive for Kyoto!
What ever happened with this item?
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070924/full/449382a.html
Gary Pearse says
“Thank you JB I’ve been looking for some evidence of my explanation in arguments I’ve had with ozone holists.”
Like to say my observation was original, however John L Daly, ” Still waiting for Greenhouse” drew my attention to this interesting artifact many years ago.
Pochas says
I understand this as;
The increased measurement by satellite is of a descending column of ozone in the wall of the Antarctic vortex.
Appears logical in that I would expect a column of air would be cooling over the poles and therefore descending. That the Antarctic ozone hole should be larger than the Arctic has some logic in that the winds around the southern ocean have less land formations to impede them.
also;
The instability of ozone at higher atmospheric pressures also explains why the production of the ‘evil’ ozone, a constituent of the photo-chemical smog of the cities, does not make a “silent spring” for the population of Los Angeles.
Thanks for the thoughts.
Wasn’t one of the excuses for the growth of Antarctic Sea Ice the ozone hole?
“Both warming and ozone loss act to strengthen the circumpolar winds in the south. This is due primarily to persistently cold conditions prevailing on Antarctica year-round, and a cold stratosphere above Antarctica due to the ozone hole. Stronger winds generally act to blow the sea ice outward, slightly increasing the extent,”
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2012/10/poles-apart-a-record-breaking-summer-and-winter/
So a really small Ozone hole should have resulted in less extent.
So may I presume the patent that DuPont holds on current CFC substitutes is coming to the end?
And they have something else in the wings?
Explaining the Antarctic sea ice maximum with the ozone hole appears to require some additional “explanation”.
Isn’t it strange that at the ozone hole is in the same area where the magnetic fields are perpendicular to earth…..
kwik says:
October 24, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Isn’t it strange that at the ozone hole is in the same area where the magnetic fields are perpendicular to earth…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Then that would be why the poles are cold as well?
Ozone is produced by specific wavelengths of UV from the sun that ionize oxygen. Other wavelengths and processes break ozone down. In the tropics and temperate zones, the processes pretty much balance out. At the poles, sometimes production is favoured and sometimes breakdown is favoured. The elliptical orbit of the earth tends to favour a larger inbalance of one vs the other over the course of a year in the antarctic versus the arctic.
It must be quite exiting to pop up a sat and low and behold there was the hole never to have been there before? And to explain the hole’s whole less of an existence with less CFCs when the concentration of CFCs are higher today than they were when they popped up the sat.
And why is the supposed hole always off center?
Someone tell Fred Singer…..he doesn’t think that CFCs had anything to do with the ozone hole, so the increase in ozone can’t have anything to do with reduction in CFCs….
Yes, it is complicated, and yes, there are natural fluctuations for various reasons.
My beef with the professional climate panic lobby is that they exaggerate and like and scare and try to impose draconian “solutions.” But CO2 and black carbon and methane do increase warming, the issue is how much, at what rate, and to what effect. We don’t have a good handle on that yet.
That is similar to my attitude toward CFCs and the ozone hole as well. Reducing CFCs will help increase ozone at the south pole, but it will likely do so in a 3 steps forward, 2 steps back manner, due to natural fluctuations.
Just noting that the claim that South Pole stratosphere temperatures were warmer this year is mostly bogus. It was warmer but many other Septembers were higher – particularly 2002 when there was a Sudden Stratospheric Warming event at the South Pole (common in the North but much rarer in the South – only three are known about for the south).
http://s9.postimage.org/8bny22mhb/South_Pole_Lower_Strat_Sept_Temps.png
Personally, I think the statosphere temps are mainly controlled by Ozone depletion/recovery from Volcanic events. Ozone intercepts UV in the stratosphere and, thus, the more Ozone there is, the more UV interceptions there are and the higher the temperatures are.
Volcanoes lead to rising stratosphere temps initially (as the volcanic sulphates now intercept more solar radiation at this level) but then they lead to stratosphere cooling as the volcanic sulphates destroy more Ozone than usual. It can take 25 years for the Ozone levels to rebuild between volcanic events.
The South Pole stratosphere temp trend over time does not really match the volcano timelines but the rest of the planet surely does.
http://s10.postimage.org/4pvei3cax/UAH_Daily_Lower_Strat_Temps.png
http://s10.postimage.org/7u62evt3d/South_Pole_Lower_Strat_Temps.png
The hole more-or-less started after the March-April 1982 El Chichon volcano and then got worse after the June 1991 Pinatubo eruption. As I noted, the data doesn’t match up exactly for the South Pole stratosphere temperatures (above) but there is at least a hint of this being the cause in the Ozone and Ozone Hole data.
Ozone ENSO Index
http://acd-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/cloud_slice/gif/enso10.gif
http://acd-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/cloud_slice/oei_Jan79_to_Dec10_clearsky.txt
http://acd-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/cloud_slice/#oei
The ozone hole mainly is caused by chlorine from human-produced chemicals,
=============
The biggest source of chlorine on earth is from dissolved salt in the oceans. Cl2 gasses off in response to Ca capture by Co2, to form CaCo3 – limestone.
The ozone hole is not caused by humans. It is caused by the sun interacting with the earth’s magnetic field at the poles. Otherwise, ozone “depletion” would be concentrated over areas of human chlorine production, rather than at the poles.