VATIS UPDATE Article

According to researchers from the University of Santiago, Chile, the ozone hole over the Antarctic in the early days of December 2015 was found to be significantly wider than usual. The team, headed by Raul Cordero and Alessandro Damiani, concluded the hole stretched to over 10 million square km (3.86 million square miles), more than double the usual average for that time of the year, said a statement by the Chilean Antarctic Institute, or Inach.

The data was collected during an expedition organized by Inach to Union Glacier, beginning November 2015 with four researchers from the University and with the help of “around 600 kilos of the best possible radiometric technology,” according to the statement. The Union Glacier Joint Polar Scientific Station is located on latitude 79° S, some 1,000 km (621.3 miles) from the South Pole.

The scientists concluded this huge annual ozone damage in the region between September and December is favored by the simultaneous occurrence of the extremely low temperatures in its stratosphere, and the “polar vortex” phenomenon, which prevents the ozone from other latitudes from filling the gap. Earlier in October 2015, the ozone hole stretched to 28 million square km (10.81 million square miles) and was concluded to be the fourth-largest ever recorded since the availability of specialized data.