Integrated ozone depletion as a metric for ozone recovery

The Montreal Protocol is successfully protecting the ozone layer. The main halogen gases responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion have been regulated under the Protocol, their combined atmospheric abundances are declining and ozone is increasing in some parts of the atmosphere1. Ozone depletion potentials2–4, relative measures of compounds’ abilities to deplete stratospheric ozone, have been a key regulatory component of the Protocol in successfully guiding the phasing out in the manufacture of the most highly depleting substances. However, this latest, recovery phase in monitoring the success of the Protocol calls for further metrics. The ‘delay in ozone return’ has been widely used to indicate the effect of different emissions or phase-down strategies, but we argue here that it can sometimes be ambiguous or even of no use. Instead, we propose the use of an integrated ozone depletion (IOD) metric to indicate the impact of any new emission. The IOD measures the time-integrated column ozone depletion and depends only on the emission strength and the whole atmosphere and stratospheric lifetimes of the species considered. It provides a useful complementary metric of the impact of specific emissions of an ozone depleting substance for both the scientific and policy communities.