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acrylic prints antarctica acrylic prints south pole acrylic prints ozone acrylic prints ozone hole acrylic prints global warming acrylic prints climate change acrylic prints environment acrylic prints change acrylic prints difference acrylic prints disappearing acrylic prints vanishing acrylic prints 1979 acrylic prints 2008 acrylic prints satellite image acrylic prints satellite map acrylic prints

photographs antarctica photos south pole photos ozone photos ozone hole photos global warming photos climate change photos environment photos change photos difference photos disappearing photos vanishing photos 1979 photos 2008 photos satellite image photos satellite map photos

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Change in ozone hole over South Pole, from 1979 (image on left) to 2008 (right). The stratospheric ozone layer protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet light, which damages DNA in plants and animals (including humans) and leads to skin cancer. Prior to 1979, scientists had not observed concentrations below 220 Dobson Units. But in the early 1980s, through a combination of ground-based and satellite measurements, scientists began to realize that Earth's natural sunscreen was thinning dramatically over the South Pole each spring. This large, thin spot in the ozone layer caused by chloroflourocarbons (CFCs) came to be known as the ozone hole. This pair of images show the beginning and end of a nearly 30-year series of images. The 1979 image was captured by NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instrument aboard Nimbus-7, and the 2008 image is from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) that flies on NASA's Aura satellite. Purple an...