Atmospheric Ozone as a Climate Gas

In the early 1970s, environmental conservationists were becoming concerned that a reduction in the thickness of the atmospheric ozone layer would lead to increased levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation at ground level, resulting in higher population exposure to UV and subsequent harm, especially a rise in skin cancer. At the time, no measurements had been reported on the normal levels of solar UV radiation which populations received in their usual environment, so this lack of data, coupled with increasing concerns about the impact to human health, led to the development of simple devices that monitored personal UV exposure. The first and most widely used UV dosimeter was the polymer film, polysulphone, and this review describes its properties and some of the pioneering studies using the dosimeter that led to a quantitative understanding of human exposure to sunlight in a variety of behavioral, occupational, and geographical settings.

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Ultra-violet transparency of the lower atmosphere, and relative poverty in Ozone

Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character ◽

10.1098/rspa.1918.0012 ◽

1918 ◽

Vol 94 (660) ◽

pp. 260-268 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Keyword(s):

Absorption Spectrum ◽

Solar Spectrum ◽

Ultra Violet ◽

Lower Atmosphere ◽

Atmospheric Ozone ◽

Absorption Bands ◽

Relative Poverty ◽

Narrow Bands

Many years ago it was suggested by Hartley* that the limit of the solar spectrum towards the ultra-violet was attributable to absorption by atmospheric ozone, which, as he showed, would give rise to a general absorption beginning at about the place where the solar spectrum ends. In a recent paper by Prof. A. Fowler and myself,† the evidence for this view was very much strengthened. For it was shown that just on the limits of extinction the solar spectrum shows a series of narrow absorption bands which are eventually merged in the general absorption, and these narrow bands are precisely reproduced in the absorption spectrum of ozone. For my own part, I do not feel any doubt that ozone in the atmosphere is the effective cause limiting the solar spectrum.

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The vertical flux of atmospheric ozone

Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres ◽

10.1029/jz062i002p00221 ◽

1957 ◽

Vol 62 (2) ◽

pp. 221-228 ◽

Cited By ~ 49

Author(s):

Victor H. Regener

Keyword(s):

Vertical Flux ◽

Atmospheric Ozone

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