EU’s Copernicus monitoring service hails ‘reassuring sign’ of progress observed this year in hole’s size and duration EU’s Copernicus monitoring service hails ‘reassuring sign’ of progress observed this year in hole’s size and duration The hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic this year was the smallest and shortest-lived since 2019, according to European space scientists, who described the finding as a “reassuring sign” of the layer’s recovery. The yearly gap in what scientists have