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Sometimes you read about skin cancer and the ozone hole in Australia. But when you look it up the ozone hole is basically just near the South Pole, and maybe a bit above the North Pole (because that’s where it’s really cold).

But has the rest of the world even been really affected? Looking at this NASA graphic it doesn’t seem there were significant changes for most people. Perhaps the average ozone levels in Europe or Australia even increased?

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  • Yes. of course. – Penguin9 Jan 25 '17 at 13:44
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    Related: http://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/5162/why-is-the-ozone-layer-hole-more-pronounced-in-the-southern-hemisphere – arkaia Jan 25 '17 at 15:26
  • Chloroflurocarbons deplete ozone world wide. The effect is just worse over Antarctica. So Antarctica is like the canary in the coal mine warning of an impending disaster. – MaxW Jan 26 '17 at 05:43
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    I think so, but the effect is most in Antarctic. – MathWA wenti Jan 26 '17 at 23:58
  • The atmosphere mixes globally, no? So if ozone is destroyed during the Antarctic night, ozone-depleted air will blow out of the 'hole', new air will blow in and have its ozone destroyed in turn. Thus it woud seem that this should eventually reduce global ozone. – jamesqf Feb 11 '17 at 20:03
  • @MaxW , CFC's only deplete ozone in the presence of polar stratospheric clouds, which are only found to any significant degree at the poles, mainly the much colder southern pole. From there, it's pretty much just like a container of gas with less ozone on one side, so diffusion from the "ozone rich" regions of the occurs and ozone is ultimately depleted from the entire container, though it's always less at the depletion source. Oh, and good seeing you here ;) – airhuff Mar 20 '17 at 18:08
  • @airhuff - No, the ozone is worse in the presence of polar stratospheric clouds, but not only there. See section "Midlatitude regions" on page 44 of pdf https://acd-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Documents/O3_Assessments/Docs/WMO_2010/Q2_QA.pdf So much worse over poles and hence my canary in a coal mine analogy. A massive ozone depletion is a disaster that good science prevented. – MaxW Mar 20 '17 at 19:24
  • @MaxW , I agree with your last sentence 110%. But I remain unconvinced that any significant CFC mediated ozone depletion has taken place at the low-mid latitudes and that the few percent decrease in ozone that has been observed is due to diffusion towards the poles. – airhuff Mar 21 '17 at 05:54

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The ozone hole size changes according to the season. It is usually larger in winter because cold temperature Why is the Ozone Layer 'hole' more pronounced in the Southern Hemisphere?

And in this graph you can see that the ozone level is lower in Australia, South Africa and south America area. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/sbuv2to/gif_files/sbuv18_sh_latest.gif

In a broader scale, it does have an impact to the rest of the world. A thinning ozone can cause stratosphere cooling. Scientists are still studying this http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/ozone-hole-and-gw-faq.html#.WJx_YLNqPU8

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  • Stratospheric cooling makes sense, given that the ozone layer is literally why the stratosphere is warmer than the layers above and below it. – Vikki Sep 18 '21 at 01:13