The hole in the ozone now covers about 10.5 million square miles

  The hole in the ozone now covers about 10.5 million square miles

 

The hole in the ozone now covers about 10.5 million square miles — twice the size of the United States.

NASA and NOAA scientists tracked the hole with satellites and with ozone-measuring balloons launched from the South Pole. 

Between September 7 and October 13 it averaged about 9.6 million square miles, and on September 18 it peaked at about 10.5 million square miles, roughly 90% of the biggest hole ever measured in 2000. 

That makes 2026 the seventh-largest ozone hole in 48 years of observations. NASA's Paul Newman says an unusually strong polar vortex, the ring of cold winds circling Antarctica, let it grow to "proportions we haven't seen in a decade."

The ozone layer shields life on Earth from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, and the hole forms every southern spring when human-made chlorine and bromine chemicals eat away at it in the cold, still air over the pole.

 

A strong, stable vortex keeps that air trapped and frigid for longer, which gives those chemicals more time to do damage.

Still, this isn't a sign the ozone layer is collapsing. Chlorine in the Antarctic stratosphere is down about a third from its 1980s peak, and Newman estimates the hole would have been 1 to 2 million square miles bigger if those chemicals were still at their 2000 levels. Scientists still expect the Antarctic ozone hole to recover by the 2070s, a reminder that the 1987 Montreal Protocol is one global environmental deal that is working.

source: 

NASA Earth Science. (2026, November 4). NASA, NOAA track 2026 Antarctic ozone hole. NASA.