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Article: CLIMATE : HOLE OVER ANTARCTICA'S OZONE LAYER BIGGER THAN LAST YEAR.
- Article from:
- Europe Environment
- Article date:
- October 6, 2006
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The hole over Antarctica's ozone layer is bigger than last year and is nearing the record 29 million square kilometre (11 million square mile) hole seen in 2000, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said at the end of September.
Geir Braathen, the United Nations weather agency's top ozone expert, said ozone depletion had a late onset in this year's southern hemisphere winter, when low temperatures normally trigger chemical reactions that break down the atmospheric layer that filters dangerous solar radiation.
"The ozone depletion started quite late, but when it started, it came quite rapidly," Braathen told journalists in Geneva. "It [the hole] ...