Ozone protects Earth's inhabitants by absorbing dangerous ultraviolet radiation from the sun. A more urgent sign of the ozone's destruction this year, NASA says, is the development of a secondary hole of an unusually large size over the frozen continent. In the image, lower concentrations of ozone are shown in purple, with higher ones in yellow and red. But a hole in the layer wasn't spotted until the 1980s. In cold weather, ice crystals form and serve as a kind of perch for the chlorine which rises through the atmosphere as part of the CFCs, which are emitted from some aerosol containers and refrigerants.
Chlorine serves as a catalyst for a process that destroys ozone, turning it into breathable oxygen.
This allows dangerous rays to pass through to the Earth's surface relatively uninhibited. Those rays have been blamed for an increase in the incidence of skin cancer. The cold weather also assists ozone destruction by removing a natural defense process. So there's nothing there but raw chlorine.