Seventh-Largest Ozone Hole Demands Recount, Says Judges Should Have Used Its Peak Day Instead Of Its Mean

WASHINGTON—Arguing that it had been the victim of an unfair scoring methodology, the 2026 Antarctic ozone hole filed a formal appeal Monday with the International Bureau of Stratospheric Rankings. The appeal followed a report from NASA Earth Observatory, which measures holes by their mean size from September 7 to October 13: "The ozone hole ranked seventh largest by area in 48 years of monitoring, but it was not as deep as other large holes on record."

"NASA's own figures show my client hit its annual maximum on September 18," said Thaddeus Wrenhollow, 52, of Upper Atmosphere Talent Partners in Boulder, CO. "Nobody judges a sprinter on their average speed over five weeks. My client peaked. Look at the tape."

The 40-page appeal also notes that NASA's record runs from 1979 through 2026 with no data for 1995. By that count the hole placed seventh among 47 observed seasons, which Wrenhollow said moved his client into "a materially more flattering percentile." Asked for the sample size of the appeal itself, Wrenhollow confirmed it was one hole. He declined to say whether a control hole had been used.

The "not as deep" line reportedly hit the hole's camp hardest. It issued a statement insisting that its client possessed "tremendous depth, just distributed horizontally." Ingrid Pomeroy-Vasquez, 61, deputy registrar at the bureau, said depth and area are scored separately. She noted that NASA says records in depth and area have never fallen in the same year.

"You cannot add them together for vibes," Pomeroy-Vasquez said. "The last time we allowed that, a cumulus cloud medaled."

This reporter read the full appeal twice, including all 14 appendices and a scatter plot labeled "VIBES (HORIZONTAL)." NASA's one-sentence summary remained the clearer and more rigorous document. This reporter has recommended that both parties work exclusively from the press release going forward.

At press time, the hole had requested that its appeal be heard by the 1995 ozone hole, the only season on record with no data against it.