Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology (MeteoSwiss), Payerne, Switzerland.
Laboratory of Atmospheric Processes and their Impacts, School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Swiss Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Environ Int. 2021 Jan;146:106177. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2020.106177. Epub 2020 Nov 12.
The effects of solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation on life on Earth differ greatly. While overexposure to UV rays is harmful, small amounts of exposure are necessary for the synthesis of Vitamin D and good health. To optimize individual exposure to solar UV, it is therefore crucial to use UV data sources representative for entire populations and realistically accounting for various influencing factors. A UV climatology for Switzerland based on satellite data has been developed to provide risk estimates at population level. An algorithm generating ground-based radiation estimate has been transformed from the visible to the UV wavelength domain by adapting both a clear-sky radiation transfer model and a cloud modification factor model using satellite imagery. The algorithm allows the computation of global UV erythemal irradiance at a spatial resolution of 1.5 - 2 km and an hourly temporal resolution over fifteen years. A validation, conducted with measurements from three meteorological stations over ten years, showed that the expanded uncertainty for low hourly UVI values (UVI < 3) is about ± 0.3, while for high hourly UVI values (UVI > 6) it can go up to ± 1.5. In clear-sky situation, the uncertainty is in the range of 10-15%. The climatology developed allows to visualise potential UV exposure at regional and national scale. National prevention intervention could use new strategies to better focus on populations at risk and better tailor available researches. The UV climatology allows a high versatility in adapting the data extraction to the goal of studies using it. Further tailored data extraction and analysis will be necessary to exploit this climatology in a wide range of environmental and occupational health applications. Its development was focused on Switzerland, but the techniques used can be extended globally.
太阳紫外线 (UV) 辐射对地球上生命的影响差异很大。虽然过度暴露在 UV 射线下是有害的，但少量的暴露对于合成维生素 D 和身体健康是必要的。为了优化个人对太阳 UV 的暴露，因此，使用代表整个人群的 UV 数据源并真实地考虑各种影响因素至关重要。已经开发了一种基于卫星数据的瑞士 UV 气候学，以提供人群水平的风险估计。一种将地面辐射估算从可见光转换到 UV 波长域的算法，通过适应晴空辐射传输模型和云修正因子模型并使用卫星图像，已经被转化。该算法允许在 1.5-2 公里的空间分辨率和十五年的每小时时间分辨率上计算全球 UV 红斑辐照度。通过对三个气象站十年的测量进行的验证表明，对于低小时 UVI 值（UVI<3），扩展不确定度约为±0.3，而对于高小时 UVI 值（UVI>6），扩展不确定度可达±1.5。在晴空条件下，不确定性在 10-15%之间。开发的气候学允许在区域和国家范围内可视化潜在的 UV 暴露。国家预防干预措施可以使用新策略更好地关注处于危险中的人群，并更好地调整现有研究。UV 气候学允许在使用它的研究目标方面具有高度的灵活性来提取数据。进一步有针对性的数据提取和分析将需要利用这一气候学在广泛的环境和职业健康应用中。它的开发重点是瑞士，但所使用的技术可以在全球范围内扩展。
