Tropospheric ultraviolet (UV) radiation is the driving force for all tropospheric photochemical processes. Photons at UV wavelengths have the potential to break usually fairly stable molecules into very reactive fragments (photolysis) and thus initiate reaction chains otherwise unlikely or even impossible.

UV radiation is also harmful to living organisms and detrimental to human health. High doses of UV radiation are considered the major contributing factor for the development of skin cancer or cataracts. UV radiation can weaken the human immune system and can affect crop yields and phytoplankton activity (to only name a few effects).

Some questions of interest might be:  What factors influence the amount of UV radiation available?  What is the vertical structure of the radiative field?  What sort of feedbacks (e.g., increased/decreased photolysis rates) can be expected from perturbations that - directly or indirectly - affect UV radiation?  What are some of the health-related effects that can be expected from changes in atmospheric composition?


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