History
In 1992, three scientists from Environment Canada developed the UV Index, and made Canada the first country in the world to broadcast forecasts of the predicted daily UV levels for the next day. Several other countries followed suit with their own UV indices, among them the United States in 1994. Until recently, the methods of calculating and reporting a UV Index varied from country to country. Today, a worldwide UV Index, standardized by the World Health Organization (WHO), has replaced the inconsistent regional methods. The international UV Index not only specifies a uniform calculation method but also standard colors and graphics for printed media. In the USA, the WHO index replaced the original US index in 2004. In 2005, the United States and Australia launched the UV Alert. While the two countries have different baseline UV intensity requirements before issuing an alert, the goal is to raise awareness of the dangers of overexposure to the sun on days with intense UV radiation.
Read more about this topic: Ultraviolet Index
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)