Increased summertime UV radiation in New Zealand in response to ozone loss

Science

Volumn 285, Issue 5434, 1999, Pages 1709-1711

  McKenzie, Richard ^a   Connor, Brian ^a   Bodeker, Greg ^a  

^a NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF WATER AND ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

OZONE;

OZONE DEPLETION; SUMMER; ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION;

ARTICLE; CLIMATE; ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURE; HUMAN; NEW ZEALAND; PRIORITY JOURNAL; RADIATION DOSE; SUMMER; ULTRAVIOLET IRRADIATION;

ATMOSPHERE; DNA DAMAGE; NEW ZEALAND; OZONE; PLANTS; SEASONS; ULTRAVIOLET RAYS;

NEW ZEALAND;

EID: 0033543724     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.285.5434.1709     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), Environmental Effects of Ozone Depletion: 1998 Assessment (UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya, 1998).
2. D. L. Albritton, P. J. Aucamp, G. Megie, R. T. Watson, Eds., Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 1998 (Report No. 44, World Meteorological Organization, Global Ozone Research and Monitoring Project, Geneva, 1998).
3. World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 1994 (Report No. 37, WMO, Global Ozone Research and Monitoring Project, Geneva, 1995).
4. The ozone measurements are from an assimilation based primarily on ground-based Dobson instruments but supplemented by homogenized data from other sources, including satellite data, when no Dobson measurements are available. B. J. Connor, G. E. Bodeker, R. L. McKenzie, I. S. Boyd, Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 189 (1999).
5. R. L. McKenzie, in Ozone in the Troposphere and Stratosphere, Proceedings of the Quadrennial Ozone Symposium 1992, R. D. Hudson, Ed. (NASA CP-3266, NASA, Greenbelt, MD, 1994), pp. 627-630.
6. A. F. McKinlay and B. L. Diffey, in Human Exposure to Ultraviolet Radiation: Risks and Regulations, W. F. Passchier and B. F. M. Bosnajakovic, Eds. (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1987), pp. 83-87.
7. Sunburning UV radiation, DNA-damaging UV radiation, and plant-damaging UV radiation are three biological weighting functions for UV radiation damage. These functions differ in shape, but in each case, they peak in the UV-B radiation region and decrease with increasing wavelength (and can include the UV-A radiation region). Details of these functions are given in (6), (19), and (20), respectively. The differences in RAF are essentially related to the peak wavelength and the gradient of the functions. Peaks at shorter wavelengths and steeper slopes make them more sensitive to ozone, leading to larger RAFs.
8. R. L. McKenzie, G. E. Bodeker, D. J. Keep, M. Kotkamp, J. H. Evans, Weather Clim. 16, 17 (1996).
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11. G. Seckmeyer et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. 22, 1889 (1995).
12. J.-L. Bulliard and B. Cox, N. Z. Public Health Rep. 3, 73 (1996).
13. The UV Index represents the integral of the spectrum (watts per square meter per nanometer) weighted by the erythemal action spectrum (6) and scaled by 40. The UV Index was originally devised in Canada to give maximum values of around 10 in that country. [WMO, Report of the WMO meeting of experts on UV-B measurements, data quality and standardization of UV indices (WMO, Geneva, 1994)].
14. The sensitivity of UV radiation to ozone change is given by the radiative amplification factor (RAF), which gives the increase expected for each 1% decrease in ozone. Changes were deduced with a simple power law relation between changes in ozone and changes in UV (13). The RAF for erythemal UV radiation under these conditions is 1.2. For more detail, see S. Madronich, R. McKenzie, M. M. Caldwell, and L. O. Björn [Ambio 24, 143 (1995)].
15. R. L. McKenzie, P. V. Johnston, M. Kotkamp, A. Bittar, J. D. Hamlin, Appl. Opt. 31, 6501 (1992).
16. B. W. Forgan and J. B. Liley, in Aerosols and UV in New Zealand, UV Radiation and Its Effects - An Update, Report of a Workshop Sponsored by the National Science Strategy Committee on Climate Change, December 1997 (Miscellaneous Series 49, Royal Society of New Zealand, Wellington, 1997), pp. 51-54.
17. R. L. McKenzie, K. J. Paulin, S. Madronich, J. Geophys. Res. 103, 28785 (1998).
18. K. Stamnes, J. Slusser, M. Bowen, Appl. Opt. 30, 4418 (1991).
19. M. M. Caldwell, L. B. Camp, C. W. Warner, S. D. Flint, in Stratospheric Ozone Reduction, Solar Ultraviolet Radiation and Plant Life, R. C. Worrest and M. M. Caldwell, Eds. (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1986), pp. 87-111.
20. R. B. Setlow, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 71, 3363 (1974).
21. R. McKenzie, B. Connor, G. Bodeker, data not shown.
22. We also investigated the effect of using several different averaging periods, selected for their significance of UV radiation exposure to the population (for example, a "school-holiday" period of mid-December through January). The pattern of increasing UV radiation is also clear in the data from individual months (Fig. 1B).
23. D. T. Shindell, D. Rind, P. Lonergan, Nature 392, 589 (1998).
24. We thank P. Johnston and M. Kotkamp of NIWA Lauder for technical assistance in developing and operating the UV observation program.