Ozone Levels Over North Pole Are Lowest Ever for Spring, NASA Says
From Times staff and wire reports
The lowest levels of springtime ozone ever detected over the North Pole have been mapped by instruments on a series of satellites, according to NASA.
Ozone levels in late March and early April over the Arctic were 40% lower than the average March measurements made from 1979 to 1982, said Pawan K. Bhartia of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. A year ago, measurements detected an ozone hole in the North Atlantic that was about 24% less dense than the 1979-82 period.
Although the Arctic ozone has thinned, the loss is not nearly as severe near the North Pole as it is over the South Pole during the southern hemisphere’s spring.
