The increase of biologically effective ultraviolet solar radiation due to a decrease of the ozone concentration in the free atmosphere (author's transl)

Abstract

From investigations on the wavelength dependence of carcinogenic UV radiation one can conclude that the spectral efficiency for human skin cancer approximately corresponds to the spectral efficiency for erythema. On the basis of this assumption, so-called biological units were computed by analogy with the Finsen units. The computations were performed for several geographical latitudes and the different seasons. The result is: More than 70% of the carcinogenic UV radiation is received by the equatorial zone from 30 deg N to 30 deg S. Finally, the increase of UV radiation due to a possible decrease of ozone concentration by 1 mm and 0.5 mm STP, resp., as a consequence of stratospheric aircraft exhaust were computed. For the equatorial zone, a decrease from 3 mm O3 to 2 (2.5) mm O3 results in an UV increase by 79 (31) %. The increase of spectral irradiation due to decreasing ozone concentration was also computed.