For many people across the world, climate change has become one of the major issues of our time. How we handle the way the world changes over the next few decades will prove crucial to the health and survival of our planet in the long term. When talking about climate change, the first thought for many of us will be both the Antarctic and the ozone layer, both of which have becomes symbols of our fight against climate change over the last few years.

However, this week it has been reported that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has grown in recent months, and is now bigger than it has ever been at this time of year. The studies carried out show that the hole is now 28.2 million square kilometres, or 10.9 million square miles, which is larger than the landmass of Russia and Canada put together. This is in stark contrast to the news reported last year that we were seeing the first signs of ozone recovery, which the World Meteorological Organisation, or the WMO, said was due to the 1987 legislation that banned the use of ozone depleting gases in commercial products. However, this news was tempered with the fact that we probably won't see a shrinking of the hole for at least a decade.

So why has the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica suddenly widened after showing signs that the growth had ceased only last year? A team of scientists for the United Nations has come up with a theory to explain this sudden widening, which they hope will prevent a worldwide panic over the state of the environment. The study carried out by the team of scientists at the United Nations found that the hole in ozone layer over Antarctica regularly widens and shrinks due to changes occurring in the conditions of the stratosphere. So how does this work?

Cold temperature in the stratosphere, combined with the return of the sun in the springtime, come together to unleash what are called chlorine radicals. These chlorine radicals then work to destroy ozone in the stratosphere, making the hole much wider. It reached its peak for this time of year on the 2nd October, and has remained around the same size since, setting more records as time goes on. However, it is still not the largest the hole over the Antarctic has ever been, and is only the third largest; there were larger holes in both 2000 and 2006.

The team at the United Nations are putting it down to the particularly cold conditions in the stratosphere, which means that although this news may seem shocking, there really is no cause for alarm, as the widening of the hole is as the result of a natural process, rather than the releasing of man-made, ozone-depleting chemicals. This means that all we can do now is wait for it to naturally shrink back to its usual size, after which we can again begin measuring whether or not it is finally shrinking.