PLANET EARTH
Ozone layer hole has grown for a third year in a row
WORDS JOANNA WENDEL
A false-colour view of the monthly averaged total ozone over the Antarctic pole for October 2022 – blue and purple show least ozone
© Alamy / Getty / NASA
The ozone hole that forms yearly over Antarctica has grown for the third year in a row. At nearly 10 million square miles, the ozone hole is the largest it’s been since 2015. But despite that growth, scientists say that the hole’s size is still on a downward trend overall. “All the data says that the ozone is on the mend,” Paul Newman, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s chief Earth scientist, said.