The surface area of the ozone hole continued to increase in September, very much in line with the average for the period 1979-2021, and reached its maximum size of 22 million square kilometers at the end of the month.
The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica returned to normal in 2024 when it began to close in early December, a date closer to the average than in recent years, according to Copernicus data.
According to near real-time monitoring carried out by the Earth observation component of the European Union (EU) Space Programme, other indicators commonly used to track the hole in the ozone layer, such as total area, were also closer to the average than in recent years, in 2024.
Over the past four years, the annual hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica remained open longer than usual and closed in the second half of December.
However, the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica broke the trend in 2024 and had a more typical evolution.
Thus, it began to close at the beginning of December, a date closer to the average than in recent years.
The opening of the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica began its evolution later than average in 2024mainly due to disruptions in the polar vortex, following two episodes of sudden warming of the stratosphere in July.
As the polar vortex reformed throughout August, the chemical depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer over Antarctica took effect, as it does every year.
The surface area of the ozone hole continued to increase in September, very much in line with the average for the period 1979-2021, and reached its maximum size of 22 million square kilometers at the end of the month.
This extension is not only smaller than that of 2023 and 2022, when the maximum area was around 25 million square kilometers, but the maximum occurred later than in 2023 and coincides with the historical average.
The area of the ozone hole decreased steadily in October, in line with average, but stabilized throughout November, with an area of approximately 10 million square kilometers per day during the month.
The polar vortex burst in the first week of December, bringing the closure of the ozone hole in 2024 quickly approaching the average closure date between 1979 and 2021.
Laurence Rouil, director of CAMS at highlighted that “the Montreal Protocol and its subsequent amendments have been very effective in reducing emissions of substances that deplete the ozone layer, but there are still certain variability in this process due to natural changes in the other atmospheric variables at play.”
“We hope to see the first signs of recovery from the hole in the ozone layer in the coming decades”, he stressed.
