air quality and UV readings

In honor of the 'moderate' PM10 readings across town this afternoon and the funny feeling I get from that in my chest, I went over to the Saguaro National Park East pollution monitoring page and learned that they don't measure particulates, but they do take hourly measurements of the solar radiation over there, and unlike wunderground, they keep them in a data file. Radiation measurements don't affect how I breathe, but since I don't feel compelled to screw around with sunscreen chemicals, I'd just as soon know how likely I am to cook myself if I go out for a ride. Not that I'm going for a ride any time soon with the air like this.

So back to the radiation. At the pollution site, they report the radiation in langs, and I need to know how that translates to the handy 1 through 16 scale used by whoever it is that likes to report that if sunlight touches your skin, you'll burst into flames immediately like a vampire. You know, the skin cancer people. First I need to figure out what a lang is, and for my first attempt I got this:

Definitions of lang on the Web:
* A lang, or lhang, is a Tibetan bull (ox).

Then I learned that there is some guy whose last name is Lang who studies things like solar radiation, but I still only understand solar radiation units in terms of W/m². So I'm probably overlooking some obvious web search term or something, but I think I'll just settle for checking the UV index on mornings when I don't go riding to see what time I'd like to be home by.

And instead of riding with the air like this, I'll probably go hiking out in the middle of nowhere, where they reportedly carry soy-free chocolate bars.