Japan’s Meteorological Agency announced last week that the ozone hole
over Antarctica has increased 13-fold over the past 10 years, and now covers
a total area of 17 million square kilometres. The agency’s findings are
based on data from American NASA satellites and Antarctic research stations
run by several countries.
Data from observations in Japan itself show that the greatest loss of
ozone – 4.5 per cent over the past 10 years – occurred over the city of
Sapporo, which lies on the same latitude as Marseilles.