Were/are ozone holes present in places besides polar regions before man made interference came ? (even a tiny hole).

Second science says that the universe was created approximately 14 billion years ago (or 18 billion years ago) ?

Two pretty different questions there.

1) No, not in recent history. A long time ago, there was no ozone in the atmosphere at all. However, the ozone layer has been here much, much longer than humans.

2) The generally accepted age of the universe is 13.7 billion years (give or take a billion or so). Recent measurements suggest that we may be off by a bit and the age may be closer to 15.8 billion, but these results need further checking.

thank you

Just in case of curiosity, a new study says that it will take 18 years longer than expected to seal up the hole in the ozone layer

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060819/ap_on_sc/un_ozone_hole_6

How do we know the void is not just in a natural cycle of opening and closing? When were the first observations even made?

quote:

Originally posted by Kendor:
How do we know the void is not just in a natural cycle of opening and closing? When were the first observations even made?

Yeah true, but if they are not, wouldnt that be too risky to rely on the above theory and do nothing about it ?

Thinning and rethickening of the ozone is in fact a natural process. However, the holes in the ozone that concern environmentalists (and should concern the rest of us) are not part of this natural process. They are extreme and not being replaced, because they are caused by unnatural gases that are a result of our actions.

I could not find when the ozone holes were first observed.

Dramatic loss of ozone in the lower stratosphere over Antarctica was first noticed in the 1970s by a research group from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) who were monitoring the atmosphere above Antarctica from a research station much like the picture to the right. - Centre for Atmospheric Studies

Other sites, including as US government one, gives the 1980s as the decade in whick the ozone loss was first noted. Wikipedia has a few paragraphs under the title "An ozone hole was first observed in 1956", and some other sites who copy from Wikipedia make that claim. However, those paragraphs are under the larger title "Myths about ozone depletion", and, if the patraghraphs are read completely, it becomes obvious that what was seen in 1956 was the natural cyclic variations of the ozone layer, not a hole in that layer.