IRELAND has recorded the lowest ozone levels overhead since records began three years ago, and the forecast for 1997 is worse.
In fact, the ozone "hole" which is already formed over Antarctica seems set to become a chasm. It matches North America in size already and is showing no signs of shrinking.
In late February and early March this year, the lowest values were recorded at Valentia Observatory, Met Eireann's monitoring station.
Writing in the current issue of Technology Ireland, Mr Gerry Murphy, Met Eireann chief scientist at Valentia, says further significant losses in the layer are expected to occur over the next decade, when another 3 to 4 four per cent of stratospheric ozone will be destroyed.
Although the depletion rate will slow and then level off, it will take another 50 to 60 years for concentrations to return to pre 1980 levels.
The stratospheric ozone layer covering the Earth's lower atmosphere plays a positive role, in absorbing ultraviolet radiation.
A depleted ozone layer allows more UVB radiation - one of the two most damaging ultraviolet wavelengths - to pass through, so increasing the risk of sunburn and skin cancer.
This year an inter governmental panel of climatologists agreed for the first time that there was a "discernible human influence" on the planet's climate, contributing last year to a shrinking Antarctic ice shelf drought blistered plains in Asia, Africa and North America and fatal heat waves in India and the US Midwest.