Ozone Hole Shrinks Again

Efforts to phase out CFCs may actually be working

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 3, 2010 4:22 PM CST

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Ozone Hole Shrinks Again — A hole in the ozone layer above the tip of South America, as measured by the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on board Russia's Meteor-3, 17th October 1994. (Getty Images)

Here's a rare bit of good environmental news: The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, cause célèbre of the '90s, is smaller than it's been for the past 5 years, MSNBC reports. The latest data fit with a pattern of reduction over the last few years that suggest international curbs on the use of chlorofluorocarbons are making a difference.

"We can't definitively say the ozone hole is improving from one new year of observations," says a scientist at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand. "However, we have now had a few years in succession with less severe holes. That is an indication we may be beginning to see a recovery."
(More ozone layer stories.)

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