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Ozone Hole Over the Arctic
Written by Astroman
Sunday, 24 April 2005
A hole in the ozone layer, almost as bad as the one over Antarctica, developed over the Arctic and the northern areas of Europe, Asia and America in the spring of 2004, according to results from seven spacecraft. Previously, the loss of ozone concentration in the stratosphere above the Arctic has always been much smaller than the loss in ozone concentration over Antarctica. Ozone loss over the Arctic was previously 25 percent or less, but last spring, up to 60 percent of the Arctic ozone was destroyed.

Scientists believe that the northern ozone hole was created by naturally occurring nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide, produced by cosmic rays from giant solar storms in October and November 2003, rather than by human-made CFC’s and halons. In February and March 2004, the polar stratospheric vortex, a low pressure system over the arctic, produced record-breaking winds that reached much higher atmospheric levels than normal. It is thought that these winds brought the nitrogen oxides down to lower altitudes, where they reacted with the ozone and destroyed it.
 
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