Geography World

The 2025 Antarctic ozone hole was the 5th smallest since 1992, a sign that decades of global action are paying off.

NASA and NOAA report that this year’s hole averaged about 7.23 million square miles. That’s still huge, but it’s smaller than it used to be and it started breaking up almost three weeks earlier than usual.

The reason: levels of ozone-depleting chemicals have been falling since the Montreal Protocol took effect.

The ozone layer protects life on Earth from harmful UV radiation, and it’s still recovering slowly. The chemicals that damage it can linger in the atmosphere for decades, which is why scientists expect a full return to 1980s levels around the late 2060s.

Temperature, weather, and the strength of the polar vortex also shape the ozone hole each year, and this August’s weaker vortex likely helped make 2025 a smaller one.
Global cooperation is the reason the ozone layer is healing at all and scientists continue to track it using satellites and weather balloons over Antarctica.