Detailed analysis of solar ultraviolet radiation: a preliminary investigation on data collected at Rome (‘La Sapienza’ University)

Abstract

The importance of solar ultraviolet radiation and its impact on human health is well known by the scientific community. Variations of the ozone layer can influence the UV radiation reaching the Earth's surface, especially at short wavelengths. Thus, it is important to study any possible ozone fluctuations. At the Physics Department, University of Rome, a Brewer spectrophotometer MKIV is located and is used to measure total ozone and UV flux in the 290–325 nm region with a resolution of 0.5 nm. Measurements of damaging ultraviolet radiation (DUV), defined as the incident radiation weighted against an action spectrum which relates the sensitivity of the human body to UV radiation, are also processed. This work is a preliminary investigation on the spectral solar UV radiation measurements performed at Rome during the years 1992/1993.