Frequently Asked Questions

• How do I obtain data from this website?

  UV radiation is measured either using broadband instruments or more sophisticated spectroradiometers. Broadband instruments measure the radiation in one or several wavebands at once using filters, whereas spectroradiometers measure each wavelength individually. The amount of UVA and UVB radiation, or the UV index can be then found by adding up the contributions from each wavelength. This is a more accurate method, and does not depend on the difficult step of matching the filter to the quantity being measured.

  There are several different types of data available from the automated UV spectroradiometer at Reading:

  • Measured UV spectral intensities for each 30-minute pass.
  • Calculated UV index for each 30-minute pass.
  • Graphs of how the UV index varies during each day.
  • Graphs of how the maximum daily UV index varies throughout the year.

  All these files can be viewed and downloaded from the UV Data area of this site.