How Colorado scientists help track the ozone hole

At least one thing in the environment seems to be getting better. 

The annual ozone layer survey, where Boulder scientists and instruments play a key part, tells us we’re still on track for solving a problem that terrified the world in the 1990s and early 2000s. Back then, headlines and interviews with Southern Hemisphere residents warned of blinded sheep, sickness from unchecked ultraviolet rays in cities like Punta Arenas, Chile, and dangers for Antarctic science stations right under the hole. 

Boulder-based NOAA tells us that 2023’s worst day for the ozone layer was only the 12th worst since they began recording in 1979, and that overall it was a “very modest ozone hole.” And remember — this is a hole in the “good” ozone, the one that protects us from sun…