Over the past month, a new hole in the ozone layer has begun to form over the Arctic.
In the past, the ozone layer over the North Pole has been depleted many times. But this time, extreme weather and atmospheric conditions resulted in much more depletion than usual, according to a press release from the European Space Agency.
This year, the Arctic ozone hole is larger than usual due to atypically low temperatures in the stratosphere, which helped trap a whirlpool of icy wind called the polar vortex in an area that scattered more ozone than usual.
However, even this unusually large hole in the ozone layer is significantly smaller than the hole over Antarctica, according to ESA.
The hole could grow to 25 million square kilometers – although it has recently become smaller – less than 1 million square kilometers.
It remains unclear what to expect in the coming years. While extreme weather has caused the ozone hole, it is too early to announce that ozone depletion in the Arctic will continue if climate change is not halted.
But we know that depletion of the ozone layer can lead to extreme weather conditions around the world, which means that the growing depletion of the ozone layer could have far-reaching consequences in the future.
Article published by Futurism.
Sources: Photo: (Copernicus / DLR / BIRA / ESA)
