NOAA reported this week that they have detected an increase in the production of chemicals that were banned  due to their impact on high-altitude ozone. This indicates that someone has begun producing it again. The study narrows it down to somewhere most likely in eastern Asia. This is bad news because the reduction in the ozone hole by banning chlorofluorocarbons has been one of the great success stories in the atmosphere in recent decades.  You can read more at National Public Radio here.

Image of the largest area of Antarctic en:ozone thinning ever recorded in September en:2000. Data taken by the en:Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instrument aboard en:NASA’s en:Earth Probe satellite. en:vi:Image:Lo Thung Ozon Lon Nhat Sept 2000.jpg