This shows, from 20 February until 4 April, the ozone abundance in the lower stratosphere where ozone depletion is most intense. The smaller globe shows values reached in a more common year (2010). One sees that this "ozone hole" reached Scandinavia at the end of March and is now weakening. It will very probably disperse in the coming weeks.
The data comes from ECMWF and is generated for the European project MACC, in which BIRA-IASB is in charge of the stratospheric ozone service. These results combine several satellite instruments within a new "chemical weather" model named IFS-MOZART and developed by ECMWF and the Jülich Research Centre. The 3-D fields were then interpolated to the 470K isentropic level in order to follow the vertical movements of the air masses in the lower stratosphere.
It's like the hole is targeting the coldest parts of the arctic... I saw the hole linger on the precious greenland ice sheet and scandinavia... I'm scared.
calicore 11 months ago
@calicore : this specific event is not scary in itself. Ozone depletion does not *directly* influence global warming. The concern is the amount of UV reaching the ground. There could be consequences on vegetation if this becomes frequent and grows in future years. But even in this case I am not much worried for people: the amount of UV should not get worse than what we encounter during summer (when sunlight is more intense).
BelgianSquirrel 10 months ago