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Ozone
Layer Is Gradually Healing, Researchers Find |
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The ozone
layer above Antarctica shields the Earth from harmful ultraviolet rays,
and is now showing encouraging signs that it's
starting to heal, according to research published in the
journal Science.
The healing of the ozone layer is credited to an international policy set nearly three decades ago that cut the production of ozone-destroying chemicals. That agreement -- the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer -- called for the phase-out of substances including chlorofluorocarbons and
halons, once present in refrigerators, aerosol cans and dry cleaning
chemicals.
"The ozone layer is expected to recover in response, albeit very slowly," wrote the researchers in the study which was released Thursday.
"We can now be confident that the things we've done have put the planet on a path to heal," said Professor Susan Solomon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who led the international team of researchers, in a
statement. "We decided collectively, as a world, 'Let's get rid of these molecules'. We got rid of them, and now we're seeing the planet respond."
The hole in the ozone was discovered in 1985, which led to the Montreal Protocol two years later.
Researchers from MIT estimated that the ozone-depleting gases peaked in the late 1990s and has since been slowly declining.
Scientists found that the hole in the ozone layer had shrunk by 1.5 million square miles, based on their measurements every September since 2000 to 2015. This area is equivalent to 4 million square kilometers, which is bigger than India.
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