COVID-19 & Ozone layer

• The European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) announced that a hole in the Arctic ozone layer, believed to be the biggest reported, has closed.

• The ozone hole’s closing was because of a phenomenon called the polar vortex, and not because of reduced pollution levels due to Covid-19 lockdowns around the world.

• The hole in the North Pole’s ozone layer, which was first detected in February, had since reached a maximum extension of around 1 million sq km, according to scientists at the German Aerospace Center.

Importance of the ozone layer:

• Ozone (chemically, a molecule of three oxygen atoms) is found mainly in the upper atmosphere, an area called the stratosphere, between 10 and 50 km from the earth’s surface.

• Though it is talked of as a layer, ozone is present in the atmosphere in rather low concentrations.

• Even at places where this layer is thickest, there are not more than a few molecules of ozone for every million air molecules.

• But they perform a very important function. By absorbing the harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun, the ozone molecules eliminate a big threat to life forms on earth.

• UV rays can cause skin cancer and other diseases and deformities in plants and animals.

Ozone holes:

• The ‘ozone hole’ is not really a hole — it refers to a region in the stratosphere where the concentration of ozone becomes extremely low in certain months.

• The ‘ozone holes’ most commonly talked about are the depletion over Antarctica, forming each year in the months of September, October and November, due to a set of special meteorological and chemical conditions that arise at the South Pole, and can reach sizes of around 20 to 25 million sq km.