I recall, 20-odd years ago, the news that the hole in the ozone layer was reaching South Africa.
Scientists discovered a gaping hole in our ozone over the Arctic, and the world was sent into a panic.
The ozone layer is important - it protects life on Earth from the sun’s most harmful rays.
The discovery of the hole in 1985 promoted successful international co-operation, which led to the phasing out of the use of harmful chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a common aerosol used in pressurised spray cans and refrigeration.
Nasa scientists monitoring the ozone layer recently found that it is healing and may fully recovery within three decades.
In the early 1980s, the fashion was for big hairdos held in place by clouds of hairspray, but few people realised that maintaining those gravity-defying styles was contributing to havoc high up in the stratosphere.
According to Nasa, America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the ozone layer is part of the upper stratosphere which lies about 10 to 50 kilometres above the surface of the Earth.
As Nasa explains: “Ozone protects life on Earth from the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Ozone in the stratosphere absorbs most of the ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Without ozone, the sun’s intense UV radiation would sterilise the Earth’s surface.”
In the final quarter of 2022, scientists from Nasa and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that the hole in the ozone layer was continuing to shrink.
The hole lies above Antarctica, and between September 7 and October 13 2022, it spanned an average area of 23.2 million square kilometres. This is well below the average seen in 2006, when the hole size peaked at 27.5 million square kilometres.
Chief scientist for Earth Sciences at Nasa, Paul Newman, said that “over time, steady progress is being made, and the hole is getting smaller. We see some wavering as weather changes, and other factors make the numbers wiggle slightly from day to day and week to week. But overall, we see it decreasing through the past two decades”.
In 1987, countries around the world signed the Montreal Protocol, which formalised the mission to protect and repair the ozone layer by rapidly reducing the volume of ozone-depleting gases being released into the atmosphere. It is the only UN treaty that has been ratified by all 198 UN member states.
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