Annual Time Series of Global VIIRS Nighttime Lights Derived from Monthly Averages: 2012 to 2019

A consistently processed annual global nighttime lights time series (2012–2019) was produced using monthly cloud-free radiance averages made from low light imaging day/night band (DNB) data collected by the NASA/NOAA Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The processing steps are modified original methods developed to produce products nightly data. Only two years of VIIRS (VNL) were with V.1 methods: 2015 and 2016. Here we report on used a V.2 VNL filtering remove extraneous features such as biomass burning, aurora, background. In this case, outlier removal is achieved twelve-month median, which discards high outliers, thus isolating background narrow range radiances under 1 nW/cm2/sr. Background areas no detectable lighting further isolated statistical measure texture, 3 × (DR). DR threshold for zeroing out rises number observations falls. method extends temporal leverage in noise developing multiyear maximum percent grid. Additional grid cells that have average (<0.6 nW/cm2/sr) detection only one or eight. spatial extent levels compared VNL. For vast majority cells, nearly same products. However, product has more dim detected. key advantages include consistent across all years, optimizing set change analyses.