This year’s ozone hole over the Antarctic ranked as the fifth smallest since 1992, according to a new report by NOAA and NASA scientists.

The ozone hole over the Antarctic is significantly smaller in 2025 than in previous years, ranking as the fifth-smallest it’s been since 1992, according to a new report by NOAA and NASA scientists.

The ozone hole reached its greatest one-day extent for 2025 in early September, measuring 8.83 million square miles, about 30% smaller than the largest hole on record in 2006.

The so-called “ozone hole” is not an actual hole in the planet’s ozone layer, but rather a large region of Earth’s stratosphere with extremely low ozone concentrations.