Ultraviolet Insolation And The Tropical Rainforest: Altitudinal Variations, Quaternary And Recent Change, Extinctions, And The Evolution Of Biodiversity
TROPICAL RAINFOREST RESPONSES TO CLIMATE CHANGE, SECOND EDITION(2011)
Abstract
Ultraviolet light occurs in three wavebands. UV-A is the longest waveband (>315 nm) which is close to visible light and is
of limited biological significance. UV-B (280–315 nm) is damaging and mutagenic to living organisms. UV-C (<280 nm) is lethal
to all life, but is fortunately absorbed in the stratosphere, so does not reach the surface of the Earth in sunlight. It is
therefore toUV-B that we must turn our chief attention. This, like UV-C, is also partly absorbed by ozone in the stratosphere,
but some reaches the Earth’s surface. Recent concerns about the ‘‘Ozone Hole’’ have focussed attention on polar regions, but
in fact tropical regions have fairly low ozone concentrations in the stratosphere above them (Smith and Warr, 1991). The result
is that, given their high overall insolation resulting from the low latitude, tropical regions have rather high UV-B levels.
MoreTranslated text
AI Read Science
Must-Reading Tree
Example
Generate MRT to find the research sequence of this paper
Chat Paper
Summary is being generated by the instructions you defined