CMDL's history in the South Pole ozone program. Return to the South Pole ozone page.

Ozone monitoring by NOAA and its predecessors at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station goes back to 1961 when the first Dobson spectrophotometer measurements were made. These continue to date, providing a 37 year record. Dobson instruments, as well as satellite instruments such as TOMS, measure ozone by detecting the amount of solar ultraviolet radiation able to penetrate through the stratospheric ozone layer. Reduced ozone results in increased ultraviolet (the reason that the ozone layer is important). Since these instruments are inoperable at the South Pole during the dark winter, the NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory began weekly ozone balloon soundings from the South Pole in 1986. During the austral spring (September to November), the sounding frequency is increased to about 3 per week in an ongoing study of the Antarctic Ozone Hole. These soundings have revealed total destruction of springtime ozone in the 15 to 19 km altitude region of the stratosphere. The lowest springtime total ozone measured during the 1986-1997 period at the South Pole was 86 Dobson Units (DU) on October 12, 1993. This may be compared with values of about 300 DU in October 1970. This page presents both historical and recent data from NOAAs South Pole ozone measurement program, which will be monitoring the recovery of the Antarctic Ozone Hole. Stay Tuned!

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