Ozone mini-hole occurring over the Tibetan Plateau in December 2003

By analyzing the total ozone data from TOMS and ground-based observations, it is found that a large area with extremely low ozone occurred over the Tibetan Plateau during December 14-17, 2003. After correcting the bias in TOMS data, the area with the total ozone < 220 DU is found to be over 2500000 km2, and the minimum value is only 190 DU. It is the first time that an ozone mini-hole or an extremely low ozone event is found to occur over the Tibetan Plateau.