GLITTERING across the briny surface of newly formed sea ice, frost flowers are as bewitching to polar scientists as Homer’s sirens – luring them and their instrument-laden sleds to the treacherous boundary between ice and sea.
These popcorn-sized puffs of ice crystals have long been thought the source of the bromine oxide that triggers the deposition of the mercury from the atmosphere and the depletion of ozone near the poles. But new findings suggest that the ice blooms do not affect the polar atmosphere as expected.
Every spring, ozone levels near the surface of Earth’s polar regions drop to near zero.…
