The Antarctic ozone hole is a recurrent phenomenon in the Southern hemisphere winter over the last 30 years. Over the Northern hemisphere ozone depletion has frequently occured but never even close to such an extent as over Antarctica. However, in winter 2010/11 we experienced an ozone depletion unlike all the other Arctic winters before. The ozone loss rate was around 0.7% per day after mid-February resulting in a total ozone loss of 38% (170 DU) in the polar vortex. This loss rate was twice as high as the maximum loss rates observed in all winters before in the Northern hemisphere. Compared to previous Arctic winters, 2011 was really remarkable: the fraction of the polar vortex in March with total ozone less than 275 Dobson units (DU) is typically near zero, but reached nearly 45% in 2011.
In my presentation I will go through the processes leading to the Antarctic ozone holes before I present the quite unique conditions of the Arctic winter 2010/11 which lead to such an extraordinary ozone depletion.
Created 2013-08-21 15:39:48 by Uwe Raffalski Last changed 2014-08-27 10:18:16 by Uwe Raffalski
