The UV Index was established more than 20 years ago as a tool for sun protection and health care. Shortly after its introduction, UV Index monitoring started in several countries either by newly acquired instruments or by converting measurements from existing instruments into the UV Index. The number of stations and networks has increased over the years. Currently, 160 stations in 25 European countries deliver online values to the public via the Internet. In this paper an overview of these UV Index monitoring sites in Europe is given. The overview includes instruments as well as quality assurance and quality control procedures. Furthermore, some examples are given about how UV Index values are presented to the public. Through these efforts, 57% of the European population is supplied with high quality information, enabling them to adapt behaviour. Although health care, including skin cancer prevention, is cost-effective, a proportion of the European population still doesn't have access to UV Index information.

Abstract. Using the aerosol optical thickness at 550 nm (τ 550 ) from MODIS (collection 5) for the 2000-2008 period combined with the aerosol products from the groundbased AERONET network since 1996, monthly mean values of key aerosol parameters have been obtained with 1 degree resolution over Europe. Additional tests have revealed a satisfactory quality of the MODIS data, except in a few cases. Quality assured AERONET data are used for evaluating the Angstrom exponent, single scattering albedo and asymmetry factor, and for validating the final aerosol optical thickness in the UV spectral region. A method for extrapolating the aerosol parameters into the UV spectral region is discussed. The aerosol optical thickness distributions are considered together with meteorological fields from NOAA NCEP CPC CAMS OPI climatology. The τ 340 is shown to vary significantly from approximately 0.01 to 0.9 depending on the season and location. Permanent elevated aerosol loading over several industrial areas is observed, which agrees with the output of chemical transport models. Using radiative transfer modeling, monthly mean UV loss due to aerosol was estimated. The absolute decrease in UV indices varies from less than 0.1 to 1.5. The relative UV attenuation has large spatial and temporal variations (−1%-−17%) with a minimum towards the northwest and maxima over several southern local areas (Northern Italy, etc.) during the warm period.

Abstract. The atmospheric aerosol properties were obtained within the framework of the AERONET program at the Moscow State University Meteorological Observatory (Moscow MSU MO) over the 2001-2014 period. The quality data control has revealed the necessity of additional cloud screening and NO 2 correction. The application of additional cloud screening according to hourly visual cloud observations provides a decrease in monthly average aerosol optical thickness (AOT) at 500 nm of up to 0.03 compared with the standard data set. We also show that the additional NO 2 correction of the AERONET version 2 data is needed in large megalopolis, like Moscow, with 12 million residents and NO x emission rates of about 100 kt yr −1 . According to the developed method, we estimated monthly mean NO 2 content, which provides an additional decrease of 0.01 for AOT at 340 nm, and of about 0.015 -for AOT at 380 and 440 nm. The ratios of NO 2 optical thickness to AOT at 380 and 440 nm are about 5-6 % in summer and reach 15-20 % in winter when both factors have similar effects on UV irradiance. Seasonal cycle of AOT at 500 nm is characterized by a noticeable summer and spring maxima, and a minimum in winter conditions, changing from 0.08 in December and January up to 0.3 in August. The application of the additional cloud screening removes a local AOT maximum in February. Statistically significant negative trends in annual AOT for UV and mid-visible spectral range have been obtained both for average and 50 % quantile values. The pronounced negative changes were observed in most months with the rate of about −1-5 % yr −1 and could be attributed to the negative trends in emissions (E) of different aerosol precursors of about 135 Gg yr −2 in E SO x , 54 Gg yr −2 in E NMVOC , and slight negative changes in NO x over the European part of Russia. No significant influence of natural factors on temporal AOT variations has been revealed.

Abstract.Simultaneous measurements by the collocated AERONET CIMEL sun/sky photometers at the Moscow State University Meteorological Observatory (MSU MO) and at the Zvenigorod Scientific Station (ZSS) of the A. M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics during September 2006-April 2009 provide the estimates of the effects of urban pollution on various aerosol properties in different seasons. The average difference in aerosol optical thickness between MO MSU and ZSS, which can characterize the effect of aerosol pollution, has been estimated to be about dAOT = 0.02 in visible spectral region. The most pronounced difference is observed in winter conditions when relative AOT difference can reach 26%. The high correlation of the AOT's, the Angstrom exponent values and the effective radii between the sites confirms that natural processes are the dominating factor in the changes of the aerosol properties even over the Moscow megacity area. The existence of positive correlation between dAOT and difference in water vapor content explains many cases with large dAOT between the sites by the time lag in the airmass advection. However, after excluding the difference due to this factor, AOT in Moscow remains higher even in a larger number of cases (more than 75%) with the same mean dAOT = 0.02. Due to the negative average difference in aerosol radiative forcing at the TOA of about dARF TOA = −0.9 W m −2 , the aerosol urban pollution provides a distinct cooling effect of the atmosphere. The PAR and UV irradiance reaching the ground is only 2-3% lower in Moscow due to the pollution effects, though in some situations the attenuation can reach 13% in visible and more than 20% in UV spectral region.

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