Warm air shrunk the ozone hole to a record low in 2017

Source: UPI

Nov. 2 (UPI) -- The hole in Earth's ozone layer shrunk to its smallest size since 1988, scientists with NASA and NOAA announced on Thursday. Researchers believe warm air worked to limit the rate of ozone depletion.

Every year, the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica gets larger during the Southern Hemisphere's winter and shrinks, or repairs itself, during the summer.

Since 1991, the average Antarctic ozone hole maximum measured 10 million square miles. In 2017, the maximum -- reached in early September -- measured 7.6 million square miles.

"The Antarctic ozone hole was exceptionally weak this year," Paul A. Newman, chief scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, reported in a news release. "This is what we would expect to see given the weather conditions in the Antarctic stratosphere."

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