Long-Term Trend in Ozone and Erythemal UV at Indian Latitudes

The role of atmospheric ozone to protect the living organisms and vegetation from the harmful effects of ultraviolet irradiation is well known. Depletion of the ozone layer is a great threat to the human society. In this paper we have discussed the lethal effects of ozone depletion and have presented the ozone and UV-B scenarios from 1979 to 2005 at different Indian latitudes using satellite data. The erythemal UV irradiance data obtained from Nimbus-7 and Earth probe total ozone mapping spectrometer (TOMS) and the tropospheric and stratospheric ozone data obtained from the convective cloud differential (CCD) method have been used to study the variability of erythemal UV irradiance and the stratospheric and tropospheric column ozone, respectively, over a period from 1979 to 2005. The observed results along with the expected upper and lower tolerance limits for tropospheric and stratospheric ozone, respectively, for different Indian latitudes, which have been estimated statistically using monthly mean CCD ozone data from 1979 to 2005 have been discussed in detail.