Rare ozone hole opens over Arctic — and it’s big

Rare ozone hole opens over Arctic — and it’s big

(Source: NASA Ozone Watch)

Unprecedented ozone hole opens over Arctic A rare, and vast, ozone hole — probably the biggest on record in the north — has opened in the skies above the Arctic. Cold temperatures and a strong polar vortex have allowed high-altitude clouds to form. These clouds include ozone-destroying chemicals that linger in our atmosphere, despite having been mostly banned in 1987. The hole will probably be short-lived, and it doesn’t threaten people’s health because the Sun is just starting to rise above the horizon in high latitudes. Nature | 4 min readReference: Nature paper