{"id":11947,"date":"2023-11-22T01:52:08","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T01:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/22\/scientists-said-the-ozone-hole-was-recovering-that-good-news-was-premature-one-study-claims\/"},"modified":"2023-11-22T01:52:08","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T01:52:08","slug":"scientists-said-the-ozone-hole-was-recovering-that-good-news-was-premature-one-study-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/22\/scientists-said-the-ozone-hole-was-recovering-that-good-news-was-premature-one-study-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists said the ozone hole was recovering. That good news was premature, one study claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recovery of the ozone layer \u2014 which sits miles above the Earth and protects the planet from ultraviolet radiation \u2014 has been celebrated as one of the world\u2019s greatest environmental achievements. But in <\/strong>a new study published Tuesday, some scientists claim it may not be recovering at all, and that the hole may even be expanding. <\/p>\n

The findings are in disagreement with widely accepted assessments of the ozone layer\u2019s status, including a recent UN-backed study that showed it would return to 1980s levels as soon as 2040. <\/p>\n

In 1987, several countries agreed to ban or phase down the use of more than 100 ozone-depleting chemicals that had caused a \u201chole\u201d in the layer above Antarctica. The depletion is mainly attributed to the use of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which were common in aerosol sprays, solvents and refrigerants. <\/p>\n

That ban, agreed under the Montreal Protocol, is widely considered to have been effective in aiding the ozone layer\u2019s recovery. <\/p>\n

But the hole, which grows over the Antarctic during spring before shrinking again in the summer, reached record sizes in 2020 to 2022, prompting scientists in New Zealand to investigate why. <\/p>\n

In a paper, published by Nature Communications, they found that ozone levels have reduced by 26% since 2004 at the core of the hole in the Antarctic springtime. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis means that the hole has not only remained large in area, but it has also become deeper [i.e. has less\u202fozone] throughout most of Antarctic spring,\u201d said Hannah Kessenich, a\u202fPhD Student at the\u202fUniversity of Otago and lead author of the study. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe especially long-lived\u202fozone\u202fholes during 2020-2022 fit squarely into this picture, as the size\/depth of the hole during October was particularly notable in all three years.\u201d <\/p>\n

To reach that conclusion, the scientists analyzed the ozone layer\u2019s behavior from September to November using a satellite instrument. They used historical data to compare that behavior and changing ozone levels, and to measure signs of ozone recovery. They then sought to identify what was driving these changes. <\/p>\n

They found that the depletion of ozone and deepening of the hole were a result of changes in the Antarctic polar vortex, a vast swirl of low pressure and very cold air, high above the South Pole. <\/p>\n

The study\u2019s authors didn\u2019t go further to explore what was causing those changes, but they acknowledged that many factors could also contribute to ozone depletion, including planet-warming pollution; tiny, airborne particles that are emitted from wildfires and volcanoes; and changes in the solar cycle. <\/p>\n

\u201cAltogether, our findings reveal the recent, large\u202fozone\u202fholes may not be caused just by CFCs,\u201d Kessenich said. \u201cSo, while the Montreal Protocol has been indisputably successful in reducing CFCs over time and preventing environmental catastrophe, the recent persistent Antarctic\u202fozone\u202fholes appear to be closely tied to changes in atmospheric dynamics.\u201d <\/p>\n

Some scientists are skeptical of the study\u2019s findings, which rely heavily on the holes observed in 2020 to 2022 and use a short period \u2014\u202f19 years \u2014\u202fto make conclusions about the long-term health of the ozone layer. <\/p>\n

\u201cExisting literature has already found reasons for these large\u202fozone\u202fholes: Smoke from the 2019 bushfires and a volcanic eruption (La Soufriere), as well as a general relationship between the polar stratosphere and El Ni\u00f1o Southern Oscillation,\u201d Martin Jucker, a scientist at the Climate Change Research\u202fCentre at the University of New South Wales in Australia, told the Science Media Center. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that during La Ni\u00f1a years, the polar vortex in the stratosphere tends to be stronger and colder than usual, which means that\u202fozone concentrations will also be lower during those years. The years 2020-22 have seen a rare triple La Ni\u00f1a, but this relationship is never mentioned in the study.\u201d <\/p>\n

He noted the study\u2019s authors said they removed two years in the record \u2014 2002 and 2019 \u2014 to ensure that \u201cexceptional events\u201d did not skew their findings. <\/p>\n

\u201cThose events have been shown to have strongly decreased the\u202fozone\u202fhole size,\u201d he said, \u201cso including those events would probably have nullified any long-term negative trend.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recovery of the ozone layer \u2014 which sits miles above the Earth and protects the planet from ultraviolet radiation \u2014 has been celebrated as one of the world\u2019s greatest environmental achievements. But in a new study published Tuesday, some scientists claim it may not be recovering at all, and that the hole may even <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}