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:
Here is a couple of Ozone maps (which show the actual concentrations of Ozone versus those processed “Hole” ones we often see).
First global Ozone concentrations on Sept 22, 2012 (the date of the minimum). This doesn’t quite cover the south pole (next one does) but we can see that the Ozone concentrations next to Antarctica are actually the highest there is at 480 Dobson units versus the global average of 300.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/sbuv2to/archive/latlon/sbuv17_ll_110922.gif
And then directly over the South Pole. There is a hole but why is there such large Ozone numbers around the outside. Just looks like a wind-driven rearrangement to me.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/sbuv2to/archive/sh/sbuv19_sh_120921.gif
Actual Ozone maps using operational satellites available here.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/sbuv2to/
It also goes in the wrong direction. The speed of every single reaction in gas phase increases as temperature increase, therefore, if temperature goes up CFCs caused ozone deplection speed should go up, but it does not. Like any other chemical kinetics that accuse CFC of causing the so called hole.
Wow. Can we get a little grammar here?
Anthony or whoever : If CFC’s and the Ozone Hole is all BS, which I’ve seen arguments to that effect, what was the real purpose of the Montreal Protocol – was the science just wrong, or did the proponents and their political allies truly push the treaty as a trial run for a future CO2 treaty ?
I recall seeing an article from the early 1970’s by some UN wonk (can’t remember the author) who was pushing a “Law of the Atmosphere” treaty designed to regulate, eliminate or tax everything dumped into the atmosphere.
Then there was some big wheel scientist, (first name Robert, I think) a major player in the MP who later went on to head either the World Bank or the IMF, and I believe he had admitted that the MP was the test case for what the real goal was – which was regulating/taxing CO2.
Can anyone refer to published news or science articles on the subject ? Gail Combs perhaps ? You frequently have interesting information, seemingly at your fingertips.
GW
Interesting. One wonders why the “hole” is usually surrounded by high ozone levels.
Bill Illis says:
October 25, 2012 at 6:25 am
“And then directly over the South Pole. There is a hole but why is there such large Ozone numbers around the outside. Just looks like a wind-driven rearrangement to me.”
Just like the air curtains at the supermarket, the atmosphere at the south pole is isolated from the rest of the lower troposphere by the polar vortex. Ozone produced in the stratosphere descends to the surface in the region of the polar vortex, yielding the concentration map so nicely depicted in the maps you referenced. At the pole, with no source of resupply, the ozone has decomposed naturally.
The size of the ozone hole is determined by the polar vortex, which would be there either with or without ozone (but probably influenced by the temperature and the poleward flow of the stratosphere which does depend on ozone which in turn does depend on solar activity). We now are seeing at least some solar activity concurrent with the contraction of the ozone hole.
Pochas says
We now are seeing at least some solar activity concurrent with the contraction of the ozone hole
Henry says
I don’t get it. What is your point? It is the FUV and EUV that changes, apparently initiated by some gravitational or magnetic force. In turn, that causes some change in reactions on top of the atmosphere that cause there to be more ozone & others up there, which in turn causes more deflection (back radiation), i.e. cooling.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
Henry@ferdberple
Heh, ferd
whenever I ask you something,
you seem to disappear. Why?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/24/good-news-2012-antarctic-ozone-hole-is-the-second-smallest-in-20-years/#comment-1121958
HenryP says:
October 25, 2012 at 10:01 am
Pochas says
We now are seeing at least some solar activity concurrent with the contraction of the ozone hole
Henry says
I don’t get it. What is your point?
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The suggestion is that stratospheric heating caused by the UV/ozone connection intensifies the poleward flow in the stratosphere. This causes a contraction of the polar vortex which in turn allows shifting of the jet streams toward the poles with consequent warming of the lower troposphere. But this is pure speculation, and I am simply observing a coincidence.
You say “It is the FUV and EUV that changes, apparently initiated by some gravitational or magnetic force. In turn, that causes some change in reactions on top of the atmosphere that cause there to be more ozone & others up there, which in turn causes more deflection (back radiation), i.e. cooling.”
I seriously doubt whether warming the stratosphere would cause long-term cooling anywhere else. Having said that, the first thing that often happens during the runup to a strong solar cycle is a La Niña. The warming comes later. Yes, the UV changes are caused indirectly by magnetic forces on the sun. There are others here who might be able to help with magnetic effects on terrestrial atmospheric gases (I believe there are none). Now tidal effects, maybe. Coriolis force, definitely.
It has always been a mystery to me how damaging levels of u/v rays streaming from the sun can manage to drop down through a hole at right angles to their original path and then strike humans as a carcenogenic medium. Do they richochet around the lower atmosphere?
That hole is just too d@mned small. It’s unnatural! Quick, everyone get an aerosol can, walk outside, and start spraying.
“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”
The southern hemisphere has much less industry and humans creating CFCs than the northern hemisphere, so why is the northern hole much smaller than the southern hole? You would have thought the opposite!
Paul Wanamaker, add to your list of causes of the depleted ozone layer, and one that might explain the north/south size difference: the earth and its atmosphere may be slightly flatter in the south than they are in the north. Ozone is produced by certain UV wavelengths of sunlight, and with a shallower angle of incidence of sunlight at the southern hemisphere, there’s less ozone and a wider depletion layer – simple trigonometry.
Code tech,
Oops my bad, R12 really dates me, freon was a great cleaning agent too !
GW, some have postulated that the Montreal Protocol was the prelude or practice run to the current CO2/global warming scam
Follow the money
If it ain’t one thing it’s another (see http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5949/123.abstract?sid=1f39fbd1-67b2-4644-8272-41827b1e7851 )
Pochas says
The suggestion is that stratospheric heating caused by the UV/ozone connection intensifies the poleward flow in the stratosphere. This causes a contraction of the polar vortex which in turn allows shifting of the jet streams toward the poles with consequent warming of the lower troposphere. But this is pure speculation, and I am simply observing a coincidence.
Henry says
Remember always: weather is the result of change of energy into earth. Trying to keep things simple, this rough graph / representation (on a cloudless day) is very important:
http://albums.24.com/DisplayImage.aspx?id=cb274da9-f8a1-44cf-bb0e-4ae906f3fd9d&t=o
Note the effect of ozone. It cuts a sizable portion of incoming radiation, of low wavelength. This type is quickly absorbed in water (esp. SH oceans) and converted to heat, because water has strong absorption in this region….
In some paper of his, Trenberth showed that ozone is responsible for the absorption (i.e. back radiation, re-radiation) of about 25% of all that is absorbed in the atmosphere. Besides H2O, I think he never even looked at a number of other substances that also react to the UV, like NxOx and HxOx that subsequently will also back radiate more when there is more. Hence, I have found a good mechanism for the observed cooling since ozone started increasing. Ozone will not start decreasing again until around 2040.
Measuring ozone depletion and reaction rates is difficult –
“The primary ozone loss process in the cold polar lower stratosphere hinges on chlorine monoxide (ClO) and one of its dimers, chlorine peroxide (ClOOCl). Recently, analyses of atmospheric observations have suggested that the equilibrium constant, Keq, governing the balance between ClOOCl formation and thermal decomposition in darkness is lower than that in the current evaluation of kinetics data….
“Overall, values of Keq reported in the literature vary by a factor of 2 at 298 K (and by larger factors at lower temperatures; e.g., ref. 13). Smaller values of Keq imply greater thermal dissociation
of ClOOCl, resulting in more ClO at a given temperature but less ClOOCl available to photolyze and consequently less chlorine-catalyzed ozone destruction, particularly in twilight. Better knowledge of Keq is therefore required for accurate prediction of polar ozone loss,,,
“Our derived B leads to values of Keq that are ∼1.4 times smaller at stratospherically relevant
temperatures than currently recommended, consistent with earlier studies…
see http://www.pnas.org/content/107/15/6588.abstract
What I have never seen addressed is the very high ozone levels that form in a ring around the depleted ozone hole area. I’ve never seen an explanation for the giant red ring of high ozone levels around the blue hole. This ring seems to also dissipate as the hole dissipates, and forms only when there is a severe depletion at the pole.
To add to the discussion- there is very little mixing between NH and SH so chlorinated chemicals released in the NH will not make the SH. I agree with a comment above. Most atmospheric chlorine is oceanic in origin. The O3 holes are part of a natural cycle.
John Marshall says:
October 25, 2012 at 2:40 am
When the ozone hole was reported way back in the 70′s by BAS had any previous research found no hole?
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Well, I think the first measurement were done in 1956 when already an unexpected lower result was registered:
http://junkscience.com/2012/04/08/exclusive-british-polar-research-in-crisis/
(Applied Optics, March 1968), Dobson described an ozone monitoring program that began at Halley Bay in 1956.
When the data began to arrive, “the values in September and October 1956 were about 150 [Dobson] units lower than expected. … In November the ozone values suddenly jumped up to those expected.
Ozone is a very unstable chemical compound with a half life-dependent on temperature:
http://www.ozoneapplications.com/info/ozone_properties.htm
Ozone is created by the dissociation of Oxygen (O2) into free radicals due to an energy input such as lightning or UV radiation. Some of the free radicals form Ozone (O3). Ozone is depleted over the poles in the Winter since the Sun is not shining, it is dark and there is no UV radiation in the Stratosphere to create Ozone.
I am a Chemical Engineer and figured this out in high school chemistry. My father said in the 1940’s they were teaching about the holes in the Ozone layer over the poles.