In Brief
Ozone Hole Will Close by 2050
DLR scientists have contributed to the report of the World Meteorological Organization on the development of the ozone layer in the stratosphere. Already in January, the WMO with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland published the report in the internet. According to this report, approximately around the middle of the twenty-first century the ozone layer will have regained the same thickness as it had at the beginning of the 1980s.
"The reason for this positive development lies in the successful regulation of the production and use of substances containing fluorine, chlorine and bromine, such as, for example, CFC, by the 1987 Montreal Protocol and successive international agreements", explains Prof. Martin Dameris from the DLR Institute for Physics of the Atmosphere. "This process illustrates the positive consequences of scientific insights initiating political consequences", says Dameris and adds: "This positive development can be guaranteed only, if the agreements of the Montreal Protocol are continued to be strictly obeyed."
