The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has said that the ozone layer outside the Polar regions will take four decades to recover to its pre-1980 levels.

The ozone layer over the Antarctic is expected to recover much later.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer, which was signed Sep 16, 1987.
It has succeeded in cutting the production and consumption of ozone-destroying chemicals, which have a long atmospheric lifetime.
But it will take several decades before their concentrations are back to pre-1980 levels.
The amount of ozone depleting gases in the Antarctic stratosphere reached a maximum around year 2000 and is now decreasing at a rate of about 1 percent every year.
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The Antarctic ozone hole is an annually recurring phenomenon due to the existence of low temperatures in the stratosphere and the presence of ozone-depleting substances.
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