The ozone hole over Antarctica is now three times the size of Brazil

If UN experts estimated in January 2023 that the ozone layer was “on the way” to recovery, the European Space Agency (ESA) reported a much bleaker assessment.

According to data recorded by the European Space Agency’s Sentiel-5P satellite on September 16, the size of the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica is now more than 26 million square kilometers.²Or three times the area of ​​Brazil. It will be one of the largest known since the discovery of the stratospheric ozone depletion zone in the 1970s.

This black hole fluctuates regularly. Typically, it increases in size from August to October over the polar regions, reaching a maximum between mid-September and mid-October, before gradually filling up around December.

However, it wasn’t that big of a deal at this time of year since the observations began, and they started to form during August, which is highly unusual.

Blame it on the Tonga volcanic eruption

European Space Agency scientists believe that the eruption of the Tonga archipelago volcano in 2022 may be the cause of this huge breach in the Earth’s protective shield.

In fact, the violent eruption of the Honga Tonga-Hunga Haapai volcano on January 15, 2022 would have pumped a significant amount of water vapor into the stratosphere, which only reached the polar regions to the south at the end of 2022.

“Water vapor could potentially lead to increased formation of polar stratospheric clouds, where chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) could interact and accelerate ozone depletion,” ESA explains in a press release.

towards reduction by 2050

It is mainly CFCs and bromine, widely used in refrigeration systems, that are responsible for the destruction of ozone molecules through catalytic reactions. Over the past decades, global cooperation has proposed several measures to reduce its impact.

The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987 and ratified by 195 countries, dramatically reduced the amount of CFCs in the atmosphere, and the ozone layer appeared to be able to fully recover. Experts estimate that the hole above Antarctica is expected to close between 2050 and 2060.