Measurements from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite show that this year’s ozone hole over Antarctica is one of the biggest on record. The hole, which is what scientists call an ‘ozone depleting area,’ reached a size of 26 million sq km on 16 September 2023. This is roughly three times the size of Brazil.
Those polar stratospheric clouds have surprised us before in spring, and chemistry up there can be counterintuitive, but seems this is not a long-term trend.