This animation uses Sentinel-5P total ozone measurements and shows the evolution of the ozone hole over the South Pole from 1 September to 29 September 2023.

The Tropomi total ozone measurements are processed within the Sentinel-5P ground segment at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) using algorithms that has been developed by DLR and the Royal Belgium Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB).

Measurements from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite show that this year’s ozone hole over the Antarctica is one of the biggest on record. The hole, which is what scientists call an ‘ozone depleting area,’ reached a size of 26 million sq km on 16 September 2023. This is roughly three times the size of Brazil.