A new assessment from the World Meteorological Organization confirms that the ozone layer, the atmospheric shield that protects life on Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation, is measurably healing, decades after nearly every country on the planet agreed to phase out the chemicals destroying it.
The 1987 Montreal Protocol banned the production of ozone-depleting substances once common in aerosol sprays, refrigerants, and foam packaging. The new WMO data show atmospheric chlorine levels declining faster than previously modeled, moving up projected recovery timelines: the ozone layer is now expected to return to 1980 levels over the Arctic and mid-latitudes by 2045, and over Antarctica by 2066, five years earlier than the 2022 estimate.
That means the seasonal hole that opens over Antarctica each year, once feared to be a permanent scar in the planet's atmosphere, is now expected to close for good within most of today's children's lifetimes.
Scientists caution the recovery is not guaranteed to stay on schedule. Some researchers have flagged higher-than-expected leakage of banned chemicals from manufacturing byproducts, which could push the timeline back by several years if not addressed. Even so, the broader trend stands as one of the clearest examples of a global environmental agreement working as intended, sustained by nearly every country honoring it for close to four decades.
