Is the ozone hole related to the greenhouse effect?
Scientists at NERC's British Antarctic Survey discovered the ozone hole in 1985.
Greenhouse warming and the ozone hole are two separate problems, although there are links between them, as the gases that destroy ozone in the high atmosphere (Chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs) are also greenhouse gases.
CFCs were widely used in aerosol cans and refrigerators until recently. The Montreal Protocol and its extensions banned them worldwide, and slowly the amount of ozone-destroying substances in the atmosphere is declining. The ozone layer will make a slow recovery, but it will be many decades before ozone returns to its pre-1980 level. The issue of climate change will be harder to tackle than ozone depletion.
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