The term “hole” is widely used in popular media when reporting on ozone. However, the concept is more correctly described as a low concentration of ozone that occurs in August-October (springtime in the Southern Hemisphere). It was not observed until 1979. The first scientific article on ozone depletion in the Antarctic was published in Nature in 1985. The largest ozone hole ever observed, 11.4 million square miles (29.6 million square kilometers), occurred on September 24, 2006. The daily maximum ozone hole area for 2009 was 9.3 million square miles (24 million square kilometers).