Summary
The 2013 ozone hole was relatively small, with about 15-17 ozone holes out of the last 20 (1994-2013) having been bigger/deeper (depending on the metric used), and only 2-4 having been smaller (2002, 2004, 2010, 2012). The development and recovery of the 2013 ozone hole will be shown via a set of metrics based on the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on board the Earth Observing Satellite (EOS) Aura. Other observational results will be shown to complement these satellite data. The 2013 ozone hole metrics will be compared to the historical metrics, and these will be linearly regressed against Equivalent Effective Stratospheric Chlorine (EESC) data that are based entirely on Cape Grim Air Archive, Antarctic firn and AGAGE global measurements of ozone depleting substances (ODS). The year-to-year variability of the ozone hole does not reflect variations in the level of ODSs in the Antarctic stratosphere, which, based on surface observations, have fallen approximately 18% since their peak around 2000 in the Antarctic stratosphere. The decadal variations in the ozone hole do reflect the long-term changes of ODSs in the Antarctic stratosphere and the results shown here suggest that ozone hole recovery has commenced. A brief comparison of the OMI satellite data to the new OMPS (Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite) instrument on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite (Suomi NPP) will also be shown. OMPS data will contribute to observing the recovery of the ozone layer in coming years.
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