The Hole In The Ozone Layer

[Timmytour]

I imagine quite a few of us in here recall a time when the world was doomed if Man did not take action to stop the hole in the Ozone layer he had discovered Man had caused from getting bigger.

My recall of it is hazy I fully admit, but you do come across sights like this that give praise for the way the world came together to take decisive action...
 

Back from the brink: how the world rapidly sealed a deal to save the ozone layer

WWW.RAPIDTRANSITION.ORG

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As a chorus of questions rises about whether the world can act quickly enough to prevent climate breakdown, one lesson from recent history suggests rapid action is possible. The ozone layer, a...

To quote from the site....
 

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The discovery of the hole was evidence that the magnitude of the problem was far greater than scientists had originally predicted. International alarm at the ozone layer’s thinning led to unprecedented multilateral action to ban the dangerous chemicals that were responsible for its deterioration – chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). By 1987, just two years after the hole was discovered, an international treaty was in place that cut the use of CFCs in half. Three years later in 1990, the Montreal Protocol was strengthened to ban the use of CFCs altogether in industrialised countries by the year 2000 and by the year 2010 in developing countries.  Today, the use of CFCs is outlawed by 197 countries around the world and scientists concur that the ozone layer is slowly recovering as a result. Overall, the success in addressing the ozone problem can give us hope that global environmental problems can and have been solved by humanity’s timely collective action.

All very good.   However I believe what wasn't known upon its discovery which is known now, is that the hole in the ozone layer is actually a naturally occurring phenomenom, In fact the article above looks a little strange when you read about what happened a year and a half later..
 

Record-breaking 2020 ozone hole closes

PUBLIC.WMO.INT

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The record-breaking 2020 Antarctic ozone hole finally closed at the end of December after an exceptional season due to naturally occurring meteorological conditions and the continued presence of ozone depleting...

Quote

The 2020 Antarctic ozone hole grew rapidly from mid-August and peaked at around 24.8 million square kilometres on 20 September 2020, spreading over most of the Antarctic continent.
It was the longest-lasting and one of the largest and deepest holes since the ozone layer monitoring began 40 years ago.

What makes me curious is the difference that was seen between 2019 - one of the smallest holes to have registered - and 2020 which saw one of the biggest ever.  And the latter came in a time when the industrial activity of the world was probably the lowest it had been for some years 

Anyway.....that aside, in the forty years of measuring the size of the hole over the Antarctic that occurs annually (so I believe) - and the one that occurs on a leer scale over the Arctic - has any correlation been established between the size of the holes and any knock-on effect of the weather?  Or is it simply the size and strength of the pole vortexes which determine the size of the hole. Are SSWs more likely to occur in times of larger holes and a weaker vortex, and even if it were the case, would the size of the hole play any significant part or would the strength of the vortex be the dominant factor?

[Relativistic]

My limited understanding is that stratospheric ozone concentrations do affect the likelihood of SSWs. When ultraviolet radiation is incident upon an ozone molecule an oxygen free radical breaks away, leaving behind a regular oxygen molecule. That oxygen free radical will scatter off other molecules, dissipating heat in the process, before recombining with another oxygen molecule to reform a molecule of ozone. Thus, the more ozone present, the greater the degree of stratospheric heating, ergo a weaker polar vortex.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Relativistic

[Gray-Wolf]

I seem to recall that when the polar night jet becomes misshapen (or bi-lobal/tri -lobal?)  sections can find themselves in sunlight as the lobes loop over lower latitudes so meeting the returning spring sun up at their altitudes?

I think Feb 2014 saw a sizable hole over the UK (IIRC?)