{"id":9768,"date":"2020-05-26T08:38:45","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T05:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=9768"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:31:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:31:05","slug":"another-hole-in-the-ozone-layer-climate-change-may-be-to-blame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/05\/26\/another-hole-in-the-ozone-layer-climate-change-may-be-to-blame\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Hole in the Ozone Layer? Climate Change May Be to Blame"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You may have heard about the hole in the\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esrl.noaa.gov\/csl\/assessments\/ozone\/2018\/twentyquestions\/figures.html\" target=\"_blank\">ozone layer<\/a>, which hovers over Antarctica. It has shrunk over time thanks to policies that curbed the use of ozone-depleting chemicals. In the nearly 40 years that NASA has kept track, it has\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/feature\/goddard\/2019\/2019-ozone-hole-is-the-smallest-on-record-since-its-discovery\" target=\"_blank\">never been smaller<\/a>. That&#8217;s the good news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bad news is that a separate hole in the ozone layer briefly&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/arctic-ozone-hole-closes.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">opened up<\/a>&nbsp;in the Arctic in March before closing in April, and climate change may be partly to blame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This isn&#8217;t the first&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov\/NH.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">such rift<\/a>&nbsp;to develop in the Arctic, but it is the largest. Scientists say that in March, a stratospheric polar vortex \u2014 a band of strong, frigid winds circling the pole \u2014 corralled chlorine and bromine that chewed away at the ozone layer. Scientists said that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1029\/2006GL026731\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">climate<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1029\/2003GL018844\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">change<\/a>&nbsp;may have set the stage for a colder, and thus more powerful, polar vortex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;In those years when a vortex can spin and set itself up and be undisturbed, it&#8217;s getting colder and colder,&#8221; said Ross Salawitch, a climate scientist at the University of Maryland. Cold air strengthens polar vortexes, allowing them to deal more damage to the ozone layer, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This year&#8217;s Arctic polar vortex was unusually strong and long-lived, helping to deplete the ozone layer. At the same time, currents that would normally deliver ozone from surrounding areas were stagnant. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ecowatch.com\/another-hole-in-the-ozone-layer-climate-change-may-be-to-blame-2646051545.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You may have heard about the hole in the\u00a0ozone layer, which hovers over Antarctica. It has shrunk over time thanks to policies that curbed the use of ozone-depleting chemicals. In&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}