Erythemal dose computations from UV-B irradiance model

Abstract

Modelling of the ground-reaching UV-B flux (280-320nm) in the experimental studies of this biologically harmful radiation is important from the point of validating the experimental measurements and also to predict the temporal and geographic variations of the UV-Berythema due to stratospheric ozone depletion brought by anthropogenic causes. The erythemal dose is computed as the convolution of the global UV-B flux with a suitable action spectra for human skin. More than one definition of erythemal dose unit (in terms of the absolute energy content) is currently used in UV-B studies and thus there is a need to standardize the erythemal dose unit. The global UV-B flux data from the UV-B photometer radiometer studies at Mysore (12.6°N, 76.6°E)and also computed from a UV-B irradiance model are used to estimate the seasonal variation of erythemal dose.