CURRENT AFFAIRS

Detailed explanation-1: -But in the early 1980s, through a combination of ground-based and satellite measurements, scientists began to realize that Earth’s natural sunscreen was thinning dramatically over the South Pole each spring. This thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica came to be known as the ozone hole.

Detailed explanation-2: -A NASA instrument has detected an Antarctic ozone “hole” (what scientists call an “ozone depletion area") that is three times larger than the entire land mass of the United States-the largest such area ever observed.

Detailed explanation-3: -In late September 2022, the Antarctic ozone hole reached its maximum area with 24.5 million km². Up until early November 2022, the Antarctic ozone hole has been similarly large and long-lasting to the ones in 2021 and 2020 [i].

Detailed explanation-4: -The hole in the ozone layer - the portion of the stratosphere that protects our planet from the sun’s ultraviolet rays - is continuing to decrease. The hole over Antarctica had an average area of 8.91 million square miles (23.2 million square kilometers).