Trend assessment of global, UVB, UVA irradiation, and dry bulb temperature at the lowest terrestrial site on earth: Dead Sea, Israel

The Dead Sea basin is the lowest terrestrial site on the globe. A meteorological station monitoring the global, UVB and UVA irradiation, and the dry bulb temperature was established in 1995 in conjunction with a study of bio-climatological properties of the region with regard to photoclimatherapy treatment of dermatological diseases. The availability of such irradiation and dry bulb temperature databases has been utilized to perform a study to determine if any trends regarding either irradiation or dry bulb temperature exists at this unique site. The global irradiation database included the time interval 1995–2021, whereas the corresponding time interval for the UVB and UVA irradiation databases was 1995–2018. There was no indication of any trends, based upon a p value analysis with regard to the global and UVB and UVA irradiation with the exception of global irradiation during September (− 120.7 Wh/m²/decade; ~ 2%/decade) and UVA irradiation during March (+ 11.1 Wh/m²/decade; ~ 4%/decade) and September (− 9.1 Wh/m²/decade; ~ 0.6%/decade). The dry bulb temperature database consisted of the time interval 1995–2021 and trends were observed during the months of August, September, and October. The dry bulb temperature data were analyzed as a function of time (Israel Standard Time) interval; viz., diurnal from 06:00 to 18:00, nocturnal from 18:00 to 06:00, and daily from 00:00 to 24:00. The trends observed during these three months varied between 0.38 and 0.70 °C/decade.