The new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness
Abstract
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, computed with our light pollution propagation software using new high-resolution satellite data and new precision sky brightness measurements. This atlas shows that more than 80% of the world and more than 99% of the U.S. and European populations live under light-polluted skies. The Milky Way is hidden from more than one-third of humanity, including 60% of Europeans and nearly 80% of North Americans. Moreover, 23% of the world's land surfaces between 75°N and 60°S, 88% of Europe, and almost half of the United States experience light-polluted nights.
- Publication:
-
Science Advances
- Pub Date:
- June 2016
- DOI:
- 10.1126/sciadv.1600377
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1609.01041
- Bibcode:
- 2016SciA....2E0377F
- Keywords:
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- Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics;
- Physics - Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
- E-Print:
- 26 pages, 19 figures, 3 tables