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Reconstruction of daily solar UV irradiation from 1893 to 2002 in Potsdam, Germany

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Abstract

Long-term records of solar UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface are scarce. Radiative transfer calculations and statistical models are two options used to reconstruct decadal changes in solar UV radiation from long-term records of measured atmospheric parameters that contain information on the effect of clouds, atmospheric aerosols and ground albedo on UV radiation. Based on earlier studies, where the long-term variation of daily solar UV irradiation was derived from measured global and diffuse irradiation as well as atmospheric ozone by a non-linear regression method [Feister et al. (2002) Photochem Photobiol 76:281–293], we present another approach for the reconstruction of time series of solar UV radiation. An artificial neural network (ANN) was trained with measurements of solar UV irradiation taken at the Meteorological Observatory in Potsdam, Germany, as well as measured parameters with long-term records such as global and diffuse radiation, sunshine duration, horizontal visibility and column ozone. This study is focussed on the reconstruction of daily broad-band UV-B (280–315 nm), UV-A (315–400 nm) and erythemal UV irradiation (ER). Due to the rapid changes in cloudiness at mid-latitude sites, solar UV irradiance exhibits appreciable short-term variability. One of the main advantages of the statistical method is that it uses doses of highly variable input parameters calculated from individual spot measurements taken at short time intervals, which thus do represent the short-term variability of solar irradiance.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support given by the European project “Stratospheric-Climate Links with Emphasis on the Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere (SCOUT-O3), Activity 4 UV radiation”, activity leaders A. Bais and G. Seckmeyer. Further, we would like to mention the support of the European COST726 action “Long term changes and climatology of UV radiation over Europe”, to which results of our model calculations and input data have been submitted. The contributions of M. Woldt, who derived daily totals of UV radiation from Brewer spectra, and K. Behrens, who provided the global and diffuse irradiance values, are also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Geography/Geoscience, Department of Climatology, University of Trier, Behringstrasse, 54286, Trier, Germany

    Jürgen Junk & Alfred Helbig

  2. Richard Aßmann Observatorium Lindenberg, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Am Observatorium 12, 15848, Lindenberg, Germany

    Uwe Feister

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  1. Jürgen Junk
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  2. Uwe Feister
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  3. Alfred Helbig
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Correspondence to Jürgen Junk.

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Junk, J., Feister, U. & Helbig, A. Reconstruction of daily solar UV irradiation from 1893 to 2002 in Potsdam, Germany. Int J Biometeorol 51, 505–512 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-007-0089-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-007-0089-4

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