Worldwide variations in artificial skyglow
نویسندگان
چکیده
Despite constituting a widespread and significant environmental change, understanding of artificial nighttime skyglow is extremely limited. Until now, published monitoring studies have been local or regional in scope, and typically of short duration. In this first major international compilation of monitoring data we answer several key questions about skyglow properties. Skyglow is observed to vary over four orders of magnitude, a range hundreds of times larger than was the case before artificial light. Nearly all of the study sites were polluted by artificial light. A non-linear relationship is observed between the sky brightness on clear and overcast nights, with a change in behavior near the rural to urban landuse transition. Overcast skies ranged from a third darker to almost 18 times brighter than clear. Clear sky radiances estimated by the World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness were found to be overestimated by ~25%; our dataset will play an important role in the calibration and ground truthing of future skyglow models. Most of the brightly lit sites darkened as the night progressed, typically by ~5% per hour. The great variation in skyglow radiance observed from site-to-site and with changing meteorological conditions underlines the need for a long-term international monitoring program.
منابع مشابه
Citizen Science Provides Valuable Data for Monitoring Global Night Sky Luminance
The skyglow produced by artificial lights at night is one of the most dramatic anthropogenic modifications of Earth's biosphere. The GLOBE at Night citizen science project allows individual observers to quantify skyglow using star maps showing different levels of light pollution. We show that aggregated GLOBE at Night data depend strongly on artificial skyglow, and could be used to track lighti...
متن کاملCorrigendum: Worldwide variations in artificial skyglow
Christopher C. M. Kyba, Kai Pong Tong, Jonathan Bennie, Ignacio Birriel, Jennifer J. Birriel, Andrew Cool, Arne Danielsen, Thomas W. Davies, Peter N. den Outer, William Edwards, Rainer Ehlert, Fabio Falchi, Jürgen Fischer, Andrea Giacomelli, Francesco Giubbilini, Marty Haaima, Claudia Hesse, Georg Heygster, Franz Hölker, Richard Inger, Linsey J. Jensen, Helga U. Kuechly, John Kuehn, Phil Langil...
متن کاملThe biological impacts of artificial light at night: the research challenge.
One contribution of 14 to a theme issue 'The biological impacts of artificial light at night: from molecules to communities'. 1. The challenge Daily, lunar and seasonal cycles of natural light have been key forms of environmental variation across the Earth's surface since the first emergence of life. They have driven the development of biological phenomena from the molecule to the ecosystem, in...
متن کاملThe new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness
Artificial lights raise night sky luminance, creating the most visible effect of light pollution-artificial skyglow. Despite the increasing interest among scientists in fields such as ecology, astronomy, health care, and land-use planning, light pollution lacks a current quantification of its magnitude on a global scale. To overcome this, we present the world atlas of artificial sky luminance, ...
متن کاملSite Selection for Groundwater Artificial Recharge in Silakhor Rangelands Using GIS Technique
Groundwater is among the most important resources of drinking water supply ofthe worldwide population. Use of recharge area is one of the methods for artificiallyrecharging groundwater. Selection of suitable sites for artificial recharge is very importantand must be carried out accurately. There are different types of land use, only rangelandsare appropriate for artificial recharge because of t...
متن کامل