The ozone layer hole near the south pole is the smallest this year since the time it was found. However, don't pat your back yet, it's not due to cut-down on pollution but due to extreme Antarctic weather.

According to NASA, this year the hole in Earth's protective ozone layer is 9.3 million square kilometers and it was 26.6 million square kilometers when it was at its peak in the year 2006. This year's hole is even smaller than when it was first discovered in 1982.

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This is indeed good news but scientists at NASA warn us that it isn't good enough and the ozone layer is not completely healed. Paul Newman, chief scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland said, "It's great news for ozone in the Southern Hemisphere, but it's important to recognize that what we're seeing this year is due to warmer stratospheric temperatures. It's not a sign that atmospheric ozone is suddenly on a fast track to recovery."

Earth's ozone layer protects life on the surface of the Earth from harmful solar radiation, but man-made chlorine compounds create an imbalance like that, which can last in the air for 100 years and nibble at the ozone. This leads to thinning and a gap over Southern Hemisphere.

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An atmospheric scientist with Universities Space Research Association, Susan Strahan said, "It's a rare event that we're still trying to understand. If the warming hadn't happened, we'd likely be looking at a much more typical ozone hole."

Till the time the scientists are finding the reason behind the depletion in hole size, let's just think we got a little lucky this year.