Antarctic ozone hole smaller this year - NASA
Date: 07-Oct-99
Country: USA
"This Antarctic year's ozone depletion area, or ozone hole, is very
large, but slightly smaller than that of 1998," said Richard McPeters,
one of the scientists who used data from the Total Ozone Mapping
Spectrometer aboard NASA's Earth Probe satellite to measure the hole.
This year's southern ozone hole covered 9.8 million square miles (25.38
million sq km) on September 15, according to preliminary satellite data.
The largest hole in the ozone over Antarctica was 10.5 million square
miles (27.19 million sq km). It was recorded on September 19, 1998.
Ozone shields life on Earth from the harmful effects of the sun's
ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Antarctic ozone losses are caused by
chlorine and bromine compounds released by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
and halons.
