Research in Top 100 articles of 2016

A study co-authored by researchers from the School of Earth and Environment and National Centre for Atmospheric Science has been named amongst the top 100 publications of 2016.

The original article published in Science on the Emergence of healing in the Antarctic ozone layer came in at number 36 in the Altmetric top 100 and number 14 on Discover magazine’s 100 Top Stories of 2016.

Dr. Ryan Neely and Dr. Anja Schmidt from the Institute of Climate and Atmospheric Science are co-authors on the paper that discovered the hole in the ozone layer is, on average, about 20% smaller than in previous years.  Recovery of the hole has varied from year to year, due in part to the effects of volcanic eruptions. But accounting for the impacts of these eruptions allowed the team to show that the ozone hole is healing, and they see no reason why the ozone hole should not close permanently by the middle of this century. This research was done in collaboration with researchers at MIT, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Dr. Ryan Neely says:

“It is fantastic to see all the positive public interest and broad engagement the results of this research are having.”

Dr. Anja Schmidt says: “Our work demonstrates the success of the Montreal Protocol, which provided a solution to a global environmental issue. It is great to see so much public engagement and interest in this topic.”

Altmetric tracks millions of different research outputs to identify the top 100 discussed articles.  This includes tracking how often research from an article is in the news and how much people engage with it on social media.  This strong international collaboration received over 2200 interactions, with over 200 news stories.  Congratulations to Dr. Neely and Dr. Schmidt on this great achievement.