Ozone hole could be deepest on record, U.N. says

SWITZERLAND: September 25, 2000

GENEVA - The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is growing at an unprecedented rate and could reach a record depth this year, United Nations meteorologists said on Friday.

The findings of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) come two weeks after the U.S. space agency NASA said the largest hole ever seen had opened up over Antarctica, a sign that greenhouse gases are taking their toll on the earth's protective layer.

"The rapid and early development of the ozone hole... continues, as sunlight reached the South Pole after the total darkness of winter," the Geneva-based WMO said.

"If the losses persist as is now expected, we will have the deepest ozone hole on record," it added.

OZONE HOLE "STRONG AS EVER"

Meteorological conditions in the stratosphere will significantly affect the size of the hole, its depth and persistence, according to the WMO.

"It is as strong as we've ever seen one," Dr. Michael Proffitt, the agency's senior scientific officer, told Reuters.

"I've been looking at all previous history of the ozone hole and we've never seen one any more intense at its peak. Historically, we would expect two or three more weeks of intensive ozone loss," he added.

For more than a decade, the annual hole in the earth's protective layer has appeared in late August or early September, with the phenomenon peaking in the first week or two of October.

During the past two weeks, all 12 monitoring stations around the rim of the Antarctic have reported measurements of ozone that are 50-70 percent below the norms in the years 1964-1976, before the ozone hole was detected, the WMO said.

"For some of the stations, these represent the lowest measured values in their records," it said.

Since last Monday, the edge of the hole has been over the Argentinian town of Ushuaia, the WMO said.

An image released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on September 8 showed a hole appearing as a giant blue blob, totally covering Antarctica and stretching to the southern tip of South America.

NASA said at the time that the hole spread over 11 million square miles (28.3 million square km), an area three times larger than the land mass of the United States.

Story by Stephanie Nebehay

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE