Unusually big Ozone hole over Arctic region closes

A rare one million square kilometers wide hole in the ozone layer over the Arctic region has finally healed itself, confirms the European Atmospheric Monitoring System, Copernicus.

The formation and the sudden disappearance of the hole has nothing to do with the reduced levels of pollution amid lockdown. It formed due to a phenomenon known as the polar vortex. The polar vortex is a name given to high altitude air currents that normally brings cold waves to the polar regions. This year the air currents split into two, hence bringing heatwaves to the polar region and the temperatures there rose up to 20 degrees higher than they normally are at this point in the year. The temperature in the polar vortex, however, was unusually cold. This caused rare stratospheric clouds (clouds that form at a distance of 50 km from the Earth) to form and interact with the atmospheric CFC (Chlorofluorocarbon is a type of greenhouse gas that increases the temperatures on the Earth and causes ozone hole). The polar vortex weakened over the time and normalcy returned in the ozone layer which healed the ozone hole.