The role of the cloud optical thickness in the attenuation of the solar ultraviolet radiation reaching the ground: Implications to the human health impacts

Cloud optical depth, as it is derived from the King's method, is compared with that deduced from the simple two stream approximation for the greater Athens, Greece area. The results show that King's method overestimates the cloud optical thickness, in comparison to the two stream approximation. These estimations were also compared with satellite observations provided by the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project. This comparison showed that there are large deviations between ground‐based and satellite observations. These deviations are probably due to the uncertainty introduced by the integration procedure of the satellite spatial analyzing resolution (distinctness). Furthermore, values of the simple scattering albedo were calculated by employing a recently proposed theoretical method and using the solar ultraviolet irradiance measurements performed at the Athens University on a routine basis. These results are of great importance for the densely populated areas like Athens, in a sense of health impacts, from enhanced incident solar ultraviolet radiation.