Library / English Dictionary

OZONE HOLE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

An area of the ozone layer (near the poles) that is seasonally depleted of ozone

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("ozone hole" is a kind of...):

hole (an opening into or through something)

Holonyms ("ozone hole" is a part of...):

ozone layer; ozonosphere (a layer in the stratosphere (at approximately 20 miles) that contains a concentration of ozone sufficient to block most ultraviolet radiation from the sun)

Credits

 Context examples: 

First detected in the 1980s, the Antarctic ozone hole forms during the Southern Hemisphere’s late winter as the returning sun’s rays accelerate reactions involving man-made forms of chlorine and bromine, like chlorofluorocarbons, that concentrate over Antarctica during winter.

(Warmth in the Antarctic stratosphere helped limit the size of the ozone hole in 2017 to the smallest observed since 1988, NOAA)

This study is the first to use measurements of the chemical composition inside the ozone hole to confirm that not only is ozone depletion decreasing, but that the decrease is caused by the decline in CFCs.

(First Direct Proof of Ozone Hole Recovery Due to Chemicals Ban, NASA)