Large Amount of Arctic Ozone Loss

Over the past the past year there has been a record amount of ozone loss over the Arctic circle. The amount of damage has created a large enough break to be labeled a 'hole' similar to the one over the Antarctic. Approximately 80% of the ozone in this area was lost during the recorded time. It is difficult for scientists to tell if this trend will continue as this is a large drop; uncommon in the past few years. This loss is attributed to the colder weather of the last year. This cold weather causes the chlorine chemicals that destroy ozone to become more active. This trend in cold winters has been documented over the last decade, and has shown that it has gotten progressively colder. For now Michelle Santee from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says that "Given that trend and the high variability, we'd anticipate that we'll have other cold ones, and if that happens while chlorine levels are high, we'd anticipate that we'd have severe ozone loss."

Information from bbc.co.uk