Something Squirrelly this Way Comes

The hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica has beaten the record size logged six years ago, the United Nations' weather agency says.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says data from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shows the hole in the atmospheric layer that guards the world against dangerous ultraviolet light has grown to 29.5 million square kilometres.

"This is the most serious on record," Mark Oliver, spokesman for the WMO, said. ABC News

"Such significant ozone loss requires very low temperatures in the stratosphere combined with sunlight. This year’s extreme loss of ozone can be explained by the temperatures above Antarctica reaching the lowest recorded in the area since 1979," European Space Agency Atmospheric Engineer Claus Zehner said.




The Dobson Unit (DU) is the unit of measure for total ozone. If you were to take all the ozone in a column of air stretching from the surface of the earth to space, and bring all that ozone to standard temperature (0 Celsius) and pressure (1013.25 millibars, or one atmosphere, or “atm”), the column would be about 0.3 centimeters thick. Thus, the total ozone would be 0.3 atm-cm. To make the units easier to work with, the “Dobson Unit” is defined to be 0.001 atm-cm. Our 0.3 atm-cm would be 300 DU.

The above image comes from the Ozone Hole Watch web site. As does the definition of The Dobson Unit (DU), which is used to measure the thickness of the ozone layer. I've included more links below so yall can peruse as you will. Serious news for a Friday entry.

NOAA Ozone Page
The Ozone Hole
British Antarctic Survey
World Meterological Organization: Global Atmosphere Watch