Scientists Discover the Antarctic Ozone Hole
- Date
- 1985
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- Oceania (Antarctica)
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
British scientists revealed the existence of a vast seasonal hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica in a paper published in Nature on 16 May 1985, a discovery that transformed environmental policy worldwide.
Researchers at the British Antarctic Survey, led by Joe Farman, had measured a dramatic springtime collapse of stratospheric ozone above their Halley station, so startling that they at first doubted their own instruments. The thinning stripped away part of the shield that protects life on the surface from harmful ultraviolet radiation linked to skin cancer, cataracts, and ecological damage. Scientists soon connected the depletion to chlorofluorocarbons, the chemicals then ubiquitous in refrigerants, aerosol sprays, and foams, whose chlorine atoms destroyed ozone high in the atmosphere. The finding galvanised international action with unusual speed, leading to the 1987 Montreal Protocol that phased out ozone-depleting substances, later hailed as the most successful global environmental treaty ever enacted. The ozone hole became a defining emblem of humanity's capacity to inflict planetary-scale harm, and its subsequent slow healing offered a rare model of what coordinated global response to an atmospheric crisis could achieve.
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Empires active in 1985
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Yugoslavia1918 CE – 1992 CE
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- Intel Releases the 4004, the First Commercial Microprocessor1971
- Apollo 11 Moon landing20 July 1969 (mission 16–24 July 1969)
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Science
Warm, jargon-free tour of discovery from Babylonian stargazers to the genome.
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