The UV-B Monitoring and Research Program operates a network of solar irradiance monitoring stations, throughout the United States. For more detail about our instrumentation, locations and data processing please select Network.

The data is divided into primary data, derived data products, UV climatology products, and instrument characteristics. For detailed information about our calibration  please select Data Processing

Our primary data consists of three minute averaged:

  • Visible irradiance at nominal 415, 500, 615, 673, 870, 940 nm wavelengths
  • UV  irradiance  at nominal 300, 305, 311, 317, 325, 332, 368 nm wavelengths
  • Erythemal weighted irradiance determined from broadband measurements between 280 to 320 nm wavelengths
  • Photosynthetically Active Radiation between 400 to 700 nm wavelengths

Our derived data products are:

  • Daily and Hourly Sums which represent an integration over time. By summing the readings over the number of seconds in the measurement period, the units of radiant power are converted to radiant energy and are useful for studying effects related to exposure.
  • Synthetic Spectra which is an estimation of  the continuous spectrum of UV spectral irradiance incident at the surface.
  • Instantaneous Optical Depths total or aerosol + cloud is determined for a time series of Langley generated voltage intercepts for morning periods.

Our UV climatology products are:

  • UV Irradiance provides statistics at 305, 314, 324 and 380 nm wavelengths for a selected region within the United States.
  • Spatio-Temporal Distribution of UV-B radiation across the United States as downloadable data sets.

A site’s data may be viewed as graphs for a maximum time frame of two months using the View and Download. This will also allow you to download the data for any time period. However,  UVMRP also provides generated data sets for both our primary data and products organized by site and/or date which can be accessed using the Data Sets Download. For special data requests please send an email to nreluvb-webmaster@colostate.edu or call 970-491-3600 . The message should include the location, data type and contact information.

All data are downloaded in CSV format with a header describing the type of data and data format.  Our nighttime data are set to  -9999. Data that are not currently available or associated with instrument errors are set to -9998.

Data Usage Guidelines

All UV-B Monitoring and Research Program (UVMRP) data are free and publicly available. However, we ask that any publications that use these data include one of the following two references that describe the UV-B network, instrument calibrations, and data products:

  • Bigelow, D.S., Slusser, J.R., Beaubien. A.F., and Gibson, J.H. (1998). The USDA Ultraviolet Radiation Monitoring Program. B. Am. Metorol. Soc.
  • Gao, W., Davis, J.M., Tree, R., Slusser, J.R., and Schmoldt, D. (2010). An Ultraviolet Radiation Monitoring and Research Program for Agriculture. In W. Gao, J.R. Slusser, and D.L. Schmoldt (Eds.), UV Radiation in Global Climate Change: Measurements, Modeling, and Effects on Ecosystems (pp. 205-243). New York: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

We also request that a reference to the UVMRP website (https://uvb.nrel.colostate.edu/UVB/) be made in discussions or acknowledgements of data availability.