Ozone concentration on October 14th, 1998
TOMS/NASA
Ozone Depletion Sets Record
News story originally written on October 14, 1998
Scientists have looked at the ozone hole over the south pole since the
1980's. This year they found that the hole is bigger than ever before.
They use the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and the Solar
Backscatter Ultraviolet Instrument (SBUV) to look at ozone.
Ozone absorbs ultraviolet light. UV light is the part of sunlight that
causes sunburns. It also causes other skin problems and can damage
plants.
Scientists don't think that the hole will get a lot bigger. They think
that it was so big this year because of really low temperatures in the
atmosphere.
Ozone is measured in Dobson units. 300 Dobson units is the average level.
If we were to compress the ozone and take everything else out, we would
have a layer about 3 millimeters thick. That's not very big!
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