THE record ozone hole over the Arctic in March, reported by NASA last
week, is worrying leading ozone researchers. 鈥淲e have now had three successive
years of record low temperatures causing ozone loss at the end of the winter in
the Arctic stratosphere,鈥� says John Pyle of the University of Cambridge,
chairman of the British government鈥檚 Stratospheric Ozone Review Group.
鈥淪omething is going on that we can鈥檛 yet explain.鈥�
NASA鈥檚 satellite-based Total Ozone Monitoring Spectrometer found that up to
40 per cent of the ozone had been lost in a 鈥渉ole鈥� extending over 5.3 million
square kilometres. This is equivalent to more than half the area of Canada.