Estimating the Diurnal Cycle and Daily Insolation of Ultraviolet and Photosynthetically Active Radiation at the Sea Surface.

Accurate determination of the diurnal variability and daily insolation of surface (0(+) ) and subsurface (0(-) ) irradiance are essential to estimate several physical, chemical and biological processes occurring at the surface layer of marine environments. Natural downwelling PAR and spectral UVR were examined on eight occasions at 0(+) and 0(-) to refine empirical models, particularly in the UVR spectrum. The diurnal variability in UVR and PAR were wavelength dependent and were modeled by a sinusoidal equation. The best fit for PAR at 0(+) and 0(-) was the sinusoid power of n = 2 and n = 2.5, respectively. In the UVR spectrum, sinusoids increased as wavelengths decreased ranging from n = 2-5. Higher n values in the UV-B spectrum suggest sharper increase/decrease near sunrise and sunset hours, ultimately reducing the final value of daily insolation at specified wavelengths. Calculated daily insolation of UV-B/(UV-A + PAR) ratio suggests that photoinhibition from exposure to UV-B occurs within a shorter biologically effective day length than PAR, and is high during summer and low during winter. These results suggest that biogeochemical calculations based on diurnal models of irradiance measurements would benefit from accurate solar noon references and wavelength specificity, particularly in the UVR spectrum.