Reconstruction of daily erythemal UV radiation values for the last century - The benefit of modelled ozone

Abstract

Solar erythemal UV radiation (UVER) is highly relevant for numerous biological processes that affect plants, animals, and human health. Nevertheless, long-term UVER records are scarce. As significant declines in the column ozone concentration were observed in the past and a recovery of the stratospheric ozone layer is anticipated by the middle of the 21st century, there is a strong interest in the temporal variation of UV ER time series. Therefore, we combined groundbased measurements of different meteorological variables with modeled ozone data sets to reconstruct time series of daily totals of UVER at the Meteorological Observatory Potsdam, Germany. Artificial neural networks were trained with measured UVER, sunshine duration, the day of year, measured and modeled total column ozone, as well as the minimum solar zenith angle. This allows for the reconstruction of daily totals of UVER for the period from 1901 to 1999. Additionally, analyses of the long-term variations from 1901 until 1999 of the reconstructed, new UVER data set are presented. The time series of monthly and annual totals of UVER provide a long-term meteorological basis for epidemiological investigations in human health and occupational medicine for the region of Potsdam and Berlin. A strong benefit of our ANN-approach is the fact that it can be easily adapted to different geographical locations, as successfully tested in the framework of the COSTAction 726. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.