2023 · Nature Communications
Potential drivers of the recent large Antarctic ozone holes
Kessenich, Seppälä, and Rodger
What was measured. TOMS, OMI, and Aura MLS partial columns, 1979–2022. October total-column trends have R² of 0.09 (September), 0.07 (October), and 0.01 (November). The slope error is larger than the slope.
What it does to the budget. The 2022 assessment said the Antarctic hole was on track to recover by 2066. These authors report another large hole in 2022, like 2020 and 2021. In the ozone layer itself (about 5–50 hPa), October partial column near the pole fell about 26 percent from 2004 to 2022 (75–82°S) and 17 percent over 60–82°S. The upper stratosphere (1–5 hPa) rose a few percent. Recovery aloft is being used to stand in for the layer where the hole actually is.
Click a month, a date, or a latitude band. The lines are the fits printed in the legends. The annual satellite points were not released as a table, so they are not redrawn.
Total column, 60–90°S
DU
Figure 1a. The fit is 2001–2022. September’s printed slope is positive. October and November are negative. In every month the 95% interval is wider than the slope. The paper dropped 2002 and 2019 from the points. Those points were not released as a table.
Deep-hole onset and breakup
days after 1 August
Figure 1b. A deep hole is below 130 DU and larger than 1 million km². T is years since 2005. Onset’s interval does not include zero. Breakup’s does. Years that never crossed the threshold are missing from their figure and were not listed.
October partial column
DU
Figure 4, Aura MLS, T in years since 2004. The ozone layer (5–50 hPa) is the two falling lines. The upper stratosphere (1–5 hPa) is the two near-flat lines. Δ is the percent change they printed on the figure.