Experimental values of the UV index during 2000 at two locations in Mediterranean Spain

During the past 2 years automatic measurements of UVB solar irradiance have been made sstematically at ground level at a number of points in Spain. Values for both the ultraviolet erythemal radiation and the ultraviolet index (UVI) have been obtained from these measurements. In this paper we present a first analysis of these values for two locations on the Spanish Mediterranean coast—Valencia and Barcelona—an area where a large part of the summer tourism of the country is concentrated. During the summer the UVI only reached ten on three occasions, though a value of nine was reached repeatedly (both classified as extreme risk by the World Health Organization). It has been shown that, in 90% of cases, the maximum daily value of UVI deviates from the value at solar 12 : 00 by, at most, one unit. The annual accumulated doses are expressed as a function of the minimum erythemal doses corresponding to each of the four usual skin phototypes. Copyright © 2002 Royal Meteorological Society