Sep 7 2000
From The Space Library
NASA announced that, on 3 September 2000, the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) aboard NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer Earth Probe (TOMS-EP) satellite had detected an 11 million-square-mile (28.5 million-square-kilometer) ozone-depletion area surpassing the ozone hole's record of 10.5 million square miles (27.2 million square kilometers) set on 19 September 1998. Scientists investigating the extent of the ozone-depletion area expressed their surprise, suggesting that early-spring conditions and an "extremely intense Antarctic vortex"-an upper-altitude stratospheric air current that moves around the continent might partly explain the record-setting size. Jack A. Kaye of the Office of Earth Sciences, Research Director at NASA Headquarters, remarked that, although scientists expect variations in the size of the ozone hole from one year to the next, they plan to observe the evolution of the ozone-depletion area in the coming months, to compare it with previous years. Manager of NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Program Michael J. Kurylo suggested that the new data reinforced concerns about the fragile nature of the ozone layer, indicating that, although international agreements had curbed the production of ozone-destroying gases, concentrations of those gases in the stratosphere were just reaching their peak levels. Therefore, he warned that it would be decades before the depletion area in the ozone layer would no longer occur annually. Associate Administrator for Earth Science Enterprise Ghassem R. Asrar commented that such discoveries demonstrated the value of long-term observations.
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