Abstract
The UV irradiance is measured at Évora since several years, where a CIMEL sunphotometer integrated in AERONET is also installed. In the present work, measurements of UVA (315 - 400 nm) irradiances taken with Kipp&Zonen radiometers, as well as satellite data of ozone total column values, are used in combination with radiative transfer calculations, to estimate the aerosol optical thickness (AOT) in the UV. The retrieved UV AOT in Évora is compared with AERONET AOT (at 340 and 380 nm) and a fairly good agreement is found with a root mean square error of 0.05 (normalized root mean square error of 8.3%) and a mean absolute error of 0.04 (mean percentage error of 2.9%). The methodology is then used to estimate the UV AOT in Sines, an industrialized site on the Atlantic western coast, where the UV irradiance is monitored since 2013 but no aerosol information is available.
Highlights
The strong influence of aerosols in atmospheric processes and in climate makes their quantification in terms of the aerosol optical thickness (AOT) to be extremely important [1]
The evolution of the AOT values retrieved from the UVA irradiance measurements in Évora is presented for each month of 2013 in the graphs of figure 2
The work presents a methodology based on the combination of UV global irradiance data with radiative transfer calculations, to retrieve the AOT in the UVA spectral region
Summary
The strong influence of aerosols in atmospheric processes and in climate makes their quantification in terms of the aerosol optical thickness (AOT) to be extremely important [1]. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation accounts for less than 10 % of the solar radiation, the UV irradiance reaching the surface has particular significance within the solar spectrum due to its potential harmful effects, constituting a hazard for several life forms on Earth. For this reason UV radiation is being monitored since several years in regions with high insolation values [4]. UV irradiance measurements may be used to estimate the atmospheric aerosol load under cloud-free conditions, constituting a useful tool to estimate AOT values in regions where only the UV radiation is monitored but no aerosol information is available, as was already proposed for pyranometer data [5]
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