Largest ozone layer hole over Arctic closed? Here’s what we know so far

The unprecedented 2020 northern hemisphere Ozone Hole has come to an end, says Copernicus ECMWF, European Satellite monitoring agency.

The largest hole in the earth’s ozone layer over the Arctic has closed. Scientists have confirmed that the largest hole in the ozone layer which was 1 million square kilometers wide over the Arctic has now healed. The information has been confirmed by Copernicus ECMWF — A European satellite system — which has found that the largest ozone layer hole over the Arctic has closed.

Taking to its Twitter handle, the European Satellite monitoring agency said, “Unprecedented 2020 northern hemisphere #OzoneHole has come to an end.

The #PolarVortex split, allowing #ozone-rich air into the Arctic, closely matching last week’s forecast from the #CopernicusAtmosphere Monitoring Service.”

Though the news was confirmed by Copernicus ECMWF on its Twitter handle — which has over 23,000 thousand followers — is not a verified Twitter handle. On its website, Copernicus ECMWF has claimed, “We provide authoritative information about the past, present and future climate, as well as tools to enable climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies by policy-makers and businesses.”

Since the development is unprecedented, it is being presumed that the healing of earth’s widest ozone layer hole happened due to the coronavirus lockdown, as almost half of world’s population is under lockdown, stuck at home, industries are shut, roads are empty, bringing a drastic improvement in pollution levels across the globe.

However, scientists say that the earth has been able to heal the ozone layer hole due to the polar vortex, the high-altitude currents that normally bring cold air to the polar regions.

What is Ozone layer?

Ozone layer is very dear to earth as it protects the planet from harmful rays and acts as a shield to Earth’s stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. It contains high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in relation to other gases in the stratosphere.