Up in the Air

By Bill Polits

"The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is starting to heal, say researchers in Australia." So writes James Mitchell Crow in "Nature News", the online version of Nature - International Weekly Journal of Science.

Because of large annual variations in ozone level measurements, the general status of the ozone hole over the Antarctic region has been obscured. These year-to-year variations have been accounted for by a new method, however, and measurements now show that Antarctic ozone levels have recovered by 15% from the low point in the late 1990.

For more on the Montreal Protocol, and efforts to reduce stratospheric ozone depletion, see this article.