The researchers explained that before health experts can create new sunlight guidelines from these findings, further calculations are necessary.

“The revision of the guidelines will take more work,” said Professor Young, “This is done by “weighting” a given solar UVR spectrum with biological function, each of which has its own wavelength dependence.”

“To give an example of this: max UVB content (at solar noon) of solar UVR is about 5%, but this 5% will cause about 85% of the sunburn because the UVB is much more effective than the 95% of UVA at causing sunburn. The amount of UVB in the sun depends on the height of the sun. So these calculations shift minute by minute,” he added.