Say I am sitting in the shadow, but the sunlight gets reflected by some window pane onto me. Does this contain enough UV light to give me a sunburn?

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    30
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    8 months ago

    You can get a burn from a reflection. There’s a building in Las Vegas that caused this problem due to its windows and angle towards the sun.

    There are too many variables to say if you’ll get a burn though.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      8 months ago

      Such as how much light is reflected, whether any windows have UV coating, how much exposure you get, and how susceptible you are to burning.

      But it’s possible.

    • Sibbo@sopuli.xyzOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Let’s assume the reflection is coming from just one flat glass pane.

  • LostXOR@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    According to this Stack Exchange answer, glass reflects around 4-100% of the UV in sunlight depending on the angle of incidence. So you could probably get a sunburn if the angle is low enough (like if the Sun is almost directly overhead and reflecting off a vertical window).

  • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    8 months ago

    It really depends on the type of glass some glass transmits UV light and some types reflect UV light. And that is not taking into account the pile of other factors that will affect it.