Meteorologists and atmospheric chemists have watched in alarm as a similarly explosive mixture to the Antarctic vortex has been assembled in the Arctic For the first time, scientists have detected a ?hole? in the ozone layer over the Arctic and northern Europe. Ozone, a form of oxygen, acts as a high-altitude atmospheric screen against cancer-causing ultraviolet light. But at some altitudes this spring, levels have been 50 per cent below any previously observed. Ozone, under assault from man-made chlorofluorocarbon compounds (CFCs), is destroyed steadily but undramatically all year. But the latest research - the Second European Stratospheric Arctic and Mid Latitude Experiment, or Sesame - has focused on a winter weather phenomenon known as the Arctic vortex.

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