Understanding the world · Environment & the future

How did the world unite to heal the ozone layer?

A hole in the sky, found by accident, and closed again by a treaty the whole world signed.

1985-20654 min read5 partsQuiz of 10 questions
Read in the app Available in 30 languages
NASA Earth Observatory images by Wanmei Liang, using GEOS-FP data courtesy of Lawrence Coy and the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC. Story by Emily Cassidy. · A Series of Rare Disturbances in the Stratosphere (153258 - stratosphericwarming mra2 20240805 lrg) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Part 1 of 5 · freeIntroduction

In 1985, British scientists stationed in Antarctica could not believe their own measurements: part of the sky seemed to have lost its protection against the Sun. It was not an instrument error but a real hole in the ozone layer, the invisible shield that protects us all. This course tells how the world discovered that danger and how, for once, it managed to repair it.

The rest is in the Sophia app.The remaining parts, the open-book quiz and the full glossary. Free to start; Premium unlocks everything.
  1. 2A fragile shield, a very handy poison
  2. 31985: the shock, then the global deal
  3. 4Why the climate is harder
  4. 5A slow but very real recovery
Open-book quiz10 questions whose answers are in the text.
Glossary14 terms explained in a tap.
30 languagesThe same course, from French to Japanese.