A monitoring network for erythemally-effective solar ultraviolet radiation in Austria: determination of the measuring sites and visualisation of the spatial distribution

Summary

In 1997 the Austrian ultraviolet radiation monitoring network was to built up to measure continuously erythemally-effective ultraviolet radiation. For this network the necessary measuring sites had to be selected by an objective method. Therefore a method was used, based on the de-correlation distances, calculated by the daily maximum of the global solar irradiance across the entire spectrum. For a correlation coefficient of 0.90, de-correlation distances were found to be in the order of 170 km (East-West) and 40 km (North-South). From this, 7 measuring sites wereselected to derive a total coverage of Austria.

For the visualisation of the measured erythemally-effective solar radiation an optimum interpolation method was used to calculate the spatial distribution. The topography of Austria was used for height correction. The global solar radiation of 39 stations is also used to include the spatial distribution of cloud cover and the resulting attenuation of the erythemally-effective radiation. The combination of these two data sets provides an accuracy estimation of people’s exposure to erythemally-effective UV radiation within the mountainous country of Austria.