Trends in Antarctic ozone hole metrics 2001- 2017

We report the linear trends over the years 2001-2017 of a number of standard metrics used to describe the severity of the Antarctic Ozone Hole, both with and without a simple adjustment to account for meteorological variability. The trends are compared to those from the years 1979-2001. All metrics considered show a trend towards reduced ozone depletion since 2001, at significance levels ranging from 2.4 to 3.9 standard errors of the trend after the adjustment has been performed. The adjustment for meteorological variability has little effect on the values of the trends but does substantially reduce the scatter and therefore uncertainty of the trends.