Does air pollution reduce UV radiation?

SHARE THIS: 

Christchurch has a severe air pollution problem, especially during winter. This winter, scientists from NIWA will be using a $150,000 spectrometer to examine how this local air pollution reduces the amount of UV radiation that reaches the earth’s surface.

UV radiation in New Zealand is much higher than it is in comparable parts of the Northern Hemisphere. For example, peak UV levels at NIWA’s atmospheric research station at Lauder in Central Otago are about 40% higher than those at similar latitudes in Europe. The reasons for this are that the air is cleaner in rural New Zealand than in Europe, the ozone levels here are lower, and the sun is closer to the earth in the Southern Hemisphere summer. We want to know the extent to which the pollution in Christchurch reduces the exposure to UV of the population at large.

To help resolve this issue NIWA is installing a UV spectrometer system at its Kyle Street, Riccarton, climate monitoring site this week. Information from this system will improve the sunburning-radiation measurements which we started there last year, and which we use to provide UV information to the public.

A second aim will be to determine which gases or aerosols might cause reductions in UV levels. Air pollution measurements carried out by Environment Canterbury will help with this.

The systems were developed by NIWA and are recognised as being state-of-the-art. So much so, that we have sold similar systems to the USA and Australia, and they are operating in Hawaii, Colorado, and Victoria.

Contact

Emeritus Researcher – Atmospheric Radiation

Archived

This page has been marked as archived, and is here for historical reference only.

Information provided may be out of date, and you are advised to check for newer sources in this section.

This content may be removed at a later date.