A hole in the ozone over the Arctic circle, that eventually grew to the largest ever, has closed.
Scientists tracking the 11-mile hole at Copernicus' Atmospheric Monitoring Service made the announcement, saying the hole was caused by a strong Arctic polar vortex, rather than human activity.
In case you’re thinking it, the recovery has nothing to do with the reduction in pollution due to the coronavirus outbreak.
"COVID19 and the associated lock-downs had nothing to do with this. It's been driven by an unusually strong and long-lived polar vortex, and isn't related to air quality changes."
The Arctic ozone holes are caused by polar vortex's while the Antarctic ozone holes are caused by chemicals such as chlorine and bromine migrating into the stratosphere. They grow during the summer and shrink in the winter. This has happened every year since at least 1985. CNN reports that last year, the Antarctic ozone hole was at its smallest since it was first discovered.