The Hole is Still There

The Antarctic ozone hole, which yawns wide every Southern Hemisphere spring, reached its annual peak on September 12, stretching 10.05 million square miles, the ninth largest on record. Above the South Pole, the ozone hole reached its deepest point of the season on October 9 when total ozone readings dropped to 102 Dobson units, tied for the 10th lowest in the 26-year record.

The ozone layer helps protect the planet's surface from harmful ultraviolet radiation. NOAA and NASA use balloon-borne instruments, ground instruments, and satellites to monitor the annual South Pole ozone hole, global levels of ozone in the stratosphere, and the humanmade chemicals that contribute to ozone depletion.

"The upper part of the atmosphere over the South Pole was colder than average this season and that cold air is one of the key ingredients for ozone destruction," said James Butler, director of NOAA's Global Monitoring Division in Boulder, Colo. Other key ingredients are ozone-depleting chemicals that remain in the atmosphere and ice crystals on which ozone-depleting chemical reactions take place.

"Even though it was relatively large, the size of this year's ozone hole was within the range we'd expect given the levels of manmade, ozone-depleting chemicals that continue to persist," said Paul Newman, chief atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Levels of most ozone-depleting chemicals are slowly declining due to international action, but many have long lifetimes, remaining in the atmosphere for decades. Scientists around the world are looking for evidence that the ozone layer is beginning to heal, but this year's data from Antarctica do not hint at a turnaround.

In August and September (spring in Antarctica), the sun begins rising again after several months of darkness. Circumpolar winds keep cold air trapped above the continent, and sunlight-sparked reactions involving ice clouds and humanmade chemicals begin eating away at the ozone. Most years, the conditions for ozone depletion ease by early December, and the seasonal hole closes.

Levels of most ozone-depleting chemicals in the atmosphere have been gradually declining since an international treaty to protect the ozone layer, the 1987 Montreal Protocol, was signed. That international treaty caused the phase out of ozone-depleting chemicals, then used widely in refrigeration, as solvents and in aerosol spray cans.

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Global atmospheric models predict that stratospheric ozone could recover by the middle of this century, but the ozone hole in the Antarctic will likely persist one to two decades beyond that, according to the latest analysis by the World Meteorological Organization, the 2010 Ozone Assessment, with co-authors from NOAA and NASA.

Researchers do not expect a smooth, steady recovery of Antarctic ozone, because of natural ups and downs in temperatures and other factors that affect depletion, noted NOAA ESRL scientist Bryan Johnson. Johnson helped co-author a recent NOAA paper that concluded it could take another decade to begin discerning changes in the rates of ozone depletion.

Johnson is part of the NOAA team tracks ozone depletion around the globe and at the South Pole with measurements made from the ground, in the atmosphere itself and by satellite. Johnson's "ozonesonde" group has been using balloons to loft instruments 18 miles into the atmosphere for 26 years to collect detailed profiles of ozone levels from the surface up. The team also measures ozone with satellite and ground-based instruments.

This November marks the 50th anniversary of the start of total ozone column measurements by the NOAA Dobson spectrophotometer instrument at South Pole station. Ground-based ozone column measurements started nearly two decades before the yearly Antarctic ozone hole began forming, therefore helping researchers to recognize this unusual change of the ozone layer.

NASA measures ozone in the stratosphere with the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aboard the Aura satellite. OMI continues a NASA legacy of monitoring the ozone layer from space that dates back to 1972 and the launch of the Nimbus-4 satellite.

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Top 10 Differences Between the North Pole and South Pole

We often say, especially about people, but also some very different facts and things that "are at opposite poles." Poles differ in concept in all aspects and marks the very idea of dissimilarity. However, we often wonder if geographically speaking Earth's North Pole and South Pole are in any way special.

           Moreover, even sometimes people have difficulty in discerning between the two versions, when given in proper names of Arctic and Antarctic. For this reason, it is interesting to see that the geographical poles of the Earth are not for nothing at opposite ends of the planet, but for even more justified reasons  than a few thousand miles that separates them.

               10. Metamorphosis 

           Arctic area from North Pole, has a natural cycle of melting which about half of  sea ice disappear during summer, only to return to original size, about the surface as the U.S. during winter. 

          However, an alarming new study has shown that thick layer of ice in Greenland melts 3.5 km with such rapidity that half of it could disappear completely by the end of the century. Other studies suggest that the entire Arctic could be completely ice-free in summer within a few decades.

 

             In contrast, Antarctica, the South Pole, do not have the same rigorous cycles of melting ice, but retains the utmost, constant shape and size throughout the year. However, in recent years, several studies have come to discover that Antarctica is losing ice, but not by natural cyclical processes, but especially under the influence of global warming.

            Had that one day, all from the South Pole ice to melt, it is estimated that the seas and the oceans would rise slightly to 60 meters. It is noted that the ice caps melting factor in the north and south of the Earth is influenced by the fact that the Arctic is under water, which makes heating, both from the core of the planet and through the ocean currents, and basically the Antarctics is a mass of rock, little or not affected by such processes. 

                    9. Ozone Affected 

           Above Antarctic a hole has formed in the ozone layer, which spans the gap increased over time to about three times the size of U.S. land area. And above the Arctic ozone layer thinning in these very moments, but regarding North Pole a hole is still yet to occure. Of course, you can not find a proper crack where it says that there is one in the ozone layer, but this means that in that place the chemical that surrounds the Earth to protect it from solar radiation was seriously thin, even disappearing.

            Loss of ozone in the northern hemisphere are small compared to the south because higher temperatures of Arctics limiting the formation of polar stratospheric clouds that can destroy the ozone. However, temperatures in the stratosphere above the North Pole has gradually decreased in recent years, resulting in significant loss of ozone. 

  

                          8. Cold and more cold

            South Pole is much colder than the North Pole. In fact, Antarctica is so cold that snow never melts not in many parts of the continent. Region's average annual temperature is -49 degrees Celsius, making this the coldest climate on Earth's entire surface. In contrast, average winter temperatures in the Arctic is about -34 degrees Celsius and summer increases.

             

               The lowest temperature ever recorded on our planet was -89.6 degrees Celsius and was measured on 21 July 1983, at Vostok Base, located in Antarctica, near the geomagnetic South Pole. Arctic sea ice is a fact that makes the North Pole to be more sensitive to climate change.

                       7. Polar bears and penguins are not neighbors anymore  

               It is generally accepted by people, probably due to the viewing of video advertising and postcards that polar bears and penguins share the same habitat glacial. Nothing is less true. Penguins live exclusively in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica, and have no natural land predators, as would certainly be the huge carnivore. 

 

               It is probably why the penguins are non-flying birds, who have adapted their wings as fins in that they serve to achieve a suite of nautical maneuvers. Polar bears, on the other hand, the largest predators on land are endemic northern species of the world and "reign" over the northern areas of the frozen Arctic Ocean, feeding on seals, walruses, and occasionally, failed whales. 

                      6. The Black Gold

             According to estimates made by the U.S. Geological Survey, under the ice of the northern Arctic Circle is about a quarter of Earth's untapped oil reserves. For this reason, Russia made a bold approach to claim a monopoly on a large portion of the Arctic in the hope that it will exploit ore deposits in the Lomonosov Dorsal , an underwater bulge beneath the Arctic Ocean , stretched over a distance of 1,800 km and that would hide up to ten billion tons of oil.

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                               5. No man's land

                Despite the symbolic images of the various explorers who triumphantly planted flags in the ice at the South Pole, Antarctica continent is the only place on Earth that does not belong to anyone. There is no history of aboriginal peoples and is governed by the Antarctic Treaty, under which the territory itself and its resources will be used only for peaceful and scientific purposes.

 

            

              This is in stark contrast to a population of over four million people living within the Arctic Circle, in a few small settlements, and cities such as Barrow, Alaska, Tromso, Norway; Muramansk and Salekhaard, Russia . On Antarctic's territory are only occasionally stationed  people on missions of research and numerous scientific basis.

                        4. A lot of ice 

             The planet's southernmost continent has easily 90% of all Earth's ice, ice encompassing about three-quarters of the Earth's freshwater. This has fed for some idea to cut and move icebergs to extinguish the thirst of excessively dry areas. 

                  In fact, Prince Mohammed al Faisal of Saudi Arabia even took a moment to consider the plan to deploy an iceberg 100 million tonnes of Antarctica and transports in the Arabian Peninsula. By comparison, the north is characterized by a much less quantity of ice than the south pole. 

                          3. Continent vs. Ocean 

                 The Arctic is practically a frozen ocean surrounded by land. In contrast, Antarctica is a continent in itself, rock and soil types of relier as mountains, valleys and lakes, surrounded by ocean.

  

                  Ironically, socially and politically, the Arctic area, made ​​completely of ice only, intersecting influences and manifestations of territories such as Canada, Greenland (part of Denmark), Russia, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the United States of America . As noted earlier, the South Pole, far removed from any continental mass, the territory is not governed by political entities, not colonized or not even inhabited by Eskimos. 

                           2. Polar vortex

                 Geographic poles of Earth are characterized by what is called "polar vortex", a major cyclone that occurs near the vertical limits of the planet. Polar vortices on Earth are located in medium and high levels of the troposphere and stratosphere. They surround the polar areas and are part of what is called "polar front" - the boundary between the polar and climate that follows, south, north, respectively, in both hemispheres. 

For the Antarctic polar vortex is more pronounced and more persistent than the Arctic.

                   This is because land masses concentrated at high latitudes of Northern Hemisphere, atmospheric Rossby waves give rise, contributing to calm the vortex. Meanwhile, the polar vortex of southern hemisphere is much less disturbed and therefore above the Antarctic was created the hole in the ozone layer, as described above. 

                            1. Magnetism and deposits 

                     Because it is a continental mass, beneath Antarctica you can find minerals like: nickel, gold, silver, platinum, iron. Obviously, nothing of this sort for the Arctics. Regarding Earth's magnetic poles one of them is about in the planet's north and the other one in the south. When we refer to the magnetic north pole, this reference relates to the homonymous geographical position, even if the north pole of Earth's magnetic field is actually in the south and south pole magnetic field is in north.

             The planet’s magnetic poles do not coincide with its geographic poles because the magnetic field of the Earth is changing. Unlike the geographic poles, the magnetic ones actually move, and this could be considered a common feature of the two poles. The difference is that the magnetic north pole (the south of the magnetic field) is no longer located right in the Arctic region but is moving towards the East at a rate of 55-60 km every year. The magnetic south pole (the north of the magnetic field) still overlaps Antarctica, but is also moving westwards at a rate of 10-15 km per year.

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