News release: “The ozone layer — the thin atmospheric band high-up in the stratosphere that protects living things on Earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays, not to be confused with damaging ozone pollution close to the ground — faces potential new challenges even as it continues its recovery from earlier damage, according to a recently released international science assessment. The report, prepared by the Scientific Assessment Panel of the U.N. Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, also presents stronger evidence that links changes in stratospheric ozone and the Earth’s climate. The report finds that over the past decade, global ozone levels, and ozone levels in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are at a turnaround point — no longer decreasing but not yet increasing. The abundances of ozone-depleting substances in the atmosphere are responding as expected to the controls of the Montreal Protocol, with many now declining in both the lower and upper atmosphere.”