The 2023 Antarctic ozone hole reached its maximum size at 10 million square miles (26 million square kilometers) on September 21, which ranks as the 16th largest since 1979, according to annual satellite and balloon-based measurements made by NOAA and NASA.
During the peak of the ozone depletion season from September 7 to October 13, the hole this year averaged 8.9 million square miles (23.1 million square kilometers), approximately the size of North America.
“It’s a very modest ozone hole,” said Paul Newman, leader of NASA's ozone research team and chief scientist for Earth sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Declining levels of human-produced chlorine compounds, along with help from active Antarctic stratospheric weather slightly improved ozone levels this year.”
Read More: NOAA
NOAA scientists launch a weather balloon carrying an ozonesonde at the South Pole on October 1, 2023. (Photo Credit: Marc Jaquart/IceCube)