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| - Fact Check: Ozone layer is healing, but it has nothing to do with lockdown
Netizens claim that the healing of the ozone layer is one of the positive effects of the lockdown. India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be misleading.
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India Today Fact Check
The ozone layer healing has nothing to do with the lockdown and was driven by unusually strong and long-lived polar vortex.
Several feel-good stories about the earth recovering have gone viral since the coronavirus pandemic forced the world indoors. Amid this, scientists have confirmed that the largest hole in the ozone layer over the Arctic region has closed in.
The ozone layer shields the earth from most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, which is a major cause of skin cancer. Netizens, however, claim that this healing of the ozone layer is one of the positive effects of the lockdown.
The archived version of the post can be seen here.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be misleading. The plugging of the ozone layer hole has nothing to do with the Covid-19 lockdown. According to scientists, it has been driven by an unusually strong and long-lived polar vortex, the high-altitude currents that bring cold air to the polar regions. This is not related to change in air quality.
Several Facebook users have made similar claims of the ozone layer gap being closed due to the lockdown.
Many Facebook users have shared a YouTube link of news channel “WION”. It has a news capsule with the caption, “Positive effect of global lockdown, Earth’s Ozone layer is healing itself | Global Lockdown”. The news clip also claims that the global lockdown has a positive impact on the ozone layer healing.
The archived version can be seen here.
Several Twitter users have also claimed that the Covid-19 lockdown is the reason behind the phenomenon.
Explaining the mystery
On April 23, 2020, Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), the European Union’s earth monitoring programme, announced that the largest hole ever observed in the ozone layer over the Arctic has closed. CAMS has been closely following the one million square km-wide ozone layer hole that had formed over the Arctic in March.
Several people on the CAMS Twitter handle said the phenomenon is the outcome of the global Covid-19 lockdown. The agency then clarified that it has nothing to do with the lockdown.
“This Arctic ozone hole actually has nothing to do with coronavirus-related lockdowns, but rather was caused by an unusually strong and long-lived polar vortex,” CAMS tweeted.
This Arctic ozone hole actually has nothing to do with coronavirus-related lockdowns, but rather was caused by an unusually strong and long-lived polar vortex. This article explains what caused it in more detail: https://t.co/Nf6AfjaYRi — Copernicus ECMWF (@CopernicusECMWF) April 26, 2020
CAMS explained the reason behind the ozone layer healing. It said the polar vortex this year has been extremely powerful and temperatures inside it have been very cold. Scientists, however, said it is still too early to attribute this phenomenon to climate change.
CAMS scientist Antje Inness told “Euronews”, “We don’t know at the moment why the dynamics were so unusual this winter. I’m sure many scientists will do modelling studies to find out the reasons for this.”
But it is clear that the ozone layer hole above the Arctic region did not close due to the coronavirus lockdown.
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