Long-term variations of the UV-B radiation over central Europe as derived from the reconstructed UV time series

Abstract

The daily doses of the erythemally weighted UV radiation are reconstructed for three sites in Central Europe: Belsk-Poland (1966-2001), Hradec Kralove-Czech Republic (1964-2001), and Tõravere-Estonia (1967-2001) to discuss the UV climatology and the long-term changes of the UV-B radiation since the mid 1960s. Various reconstruction models are examined: a purely statistical model based on the Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) methodology, and a hybrid model combining radiative transfer model calculations with empirical estimates of the cloud effects on the UV radiation. Modeled long-term variations of the surface UV doses appear to be in a reasonable agreement with the observed ones. A simple quality control procedure is proposed to check the homogeneity of the biometer and pyranometer data. The models are verified using the results of UV observations carried out at Belsk since 1976. MARS provides the best estimates of the UV doses, giving a mean difference between the modeled and observed monthly means equal to 0.6±2.5%. The basic findings are: similar climatological forcing by clouds for all considered stations (∼30% reduction in the surface UV), long-term variations in UV monthly doses having the same temporal pattern for all stations with extreme low monthly values (∼5% below overall mean level) at the end of the 1970s and extreme high monthly values (∼5% above overall mean level) in the mid 1990s, regional peculiarities in the cloud long-term forcing sometimes leading to extended periods with elevated UV doses, recent stabilization of the ozone induced UV long-term changes being a response to a trendless tendency of total ozone since the mid 1990s. In the case of the slowdown of the total ozone trend over Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes it seems that clouds will appear as the most important modulator of the UV radiation both in long- and short-time scales over next decades. © European Geosciences Union 2004.