What ever happened to that hole in the ozone that everyone blamed on Global Warming? Has it gotten smaller?

Question

The hole over Antarctica, I mean. My friend J would like to know.

Answer 1

I thought that the ozone "hole" over Antartica (actually depletion, and not a hole in itself) and global warming were two different topics. Ozone depletion is related to the industrial production of CFCs, which many countries have lowered their use of. CFCs are still used by some air conditioners, refrigerators, and aerosols. The ozone layer is somewhat better since the measures were put in place, but it will be up to a century or more before it recovers.

Global warming is related to human produced and natural CO2 in the atmosphere causing a greenhouse effect that absorbs and traps infrared radiation. It is different from CFCs, but both are influenced by human industrial processes.

This is at least what I've heard in my Chemistry class this semester. You should probably look up secondary information if you want to double check.

Answer 2

The size and severity of the ozone hole has leveled off since the worldwide adoption of the Montreal Protocols in the 1980's that limited CFC production. But CFC's are very stable, long-lived chemicals that will stay in the stratosphere for a long time, so the ozone hole will remain with us -- though slowly getting better -- for decades to come.

Answer 3

Sorry, for the 1995 data.

At present, the hole over Antarctica is about 27 million square kilometers (10 million square miles) and the WMO expects it to increase to about 28 million square kilometers (10.8 million square miles) -- a notch below its 2003 peak at about 29 million square kilometers (11.2 million square miles).

Answer 4

It hangs over Oz quite a bit during summer.
I'm lead to believe it shrunk since we all 'got together' and banned PCBs or whatever that deodorant propellant was.
It might have been something to do with the cooling agent in Fridges and Air Con in cars too.

Answer 5

It's still there, but is likely to shrink back to 1980s levels around the middle of this century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_hole#Current_events_and_future_prospects_of_ozone_depletion

Here in southern Australia, elementary school children are not allowed to go out and play unless they are wearing broad-brimmed hats for UV protection. We're kind of used to it now, but visitors from overseas often remark on it. There's currently some diuscussion about making it compulsory for high school kids, too.

Answer 6

Can you remember any of the 90's retoric about how ozone depleting substances would stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and act as a catalyst to deplete ozone for centuries after we stopped using cfc's.

Well aparently they weren't 100% accurate. The ozone layer is supposedly recovering, despite the fact that the atmospheric concentration of CFC's has hardly changed since they were phased out.

Answer 7

Once again a deliberate question to belittle warning on climate changes and mislead. AFAIK Ozone and GW were to different things, and Ozone hole changes location and size. GW is happening and so is pollution, real fast.

Answer 8

As soon as laws got passed to ban all CFC's, no one paid any more attention to this.

This was billed as a very serious problem, one that if not taken care of right away would give everyone in the world skin cancer or worse. However this was all forgotten about after CFC's were banned.

This should only strengthen the view that the issue isn't about saving the Earth, but to pass more laws to place more limits on mankind.

Answer 9

The hole is actually getting a bit smaller so it is recovering slowly.

Answer 10

It was a lie, presented as fact. Much as the global warming issue is. The ONLY thing that occurred was that the Americans now pay 300 times the cost to have any form of ac repaired. While the rest of the world continues to use r12 that we are not allowed to. Once again, drama overcame common sense. that is one of the main reasons I don't buy for one minute anything gore says.