Post #1769618

2025-06-16 09:03 UTC

In 2021, hundreds of citizen scientists walked a distance of 600 km, counting up and classifying all of the outdoor lights they could see while they did it. The results of their observations have just been published in the journal Nature Cities: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-025-00239-5 Find out why they did it, and what they found out in this thread 👇 (1/) #CitizenScience #LightPollution #OpenAccess #NighttimeLights #RemoteSensing #Nachtlichter

Replies (2)

@skyglowberlin@fediscience.org 2025-06-16 09:06

First off, some background. In 2017, I published a paper that showed that most countries in the world are getting brighter at night in nighttime satellite observations: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1701528 A number of journalists who reported on that paper asked me “what is actually changing on the ground?” Are streetlights getting more numerous or brighter? Or is it because bike paths are getting lit up now? (seriously got that question from multiple journalists…) Or is some other kind of light changing? I realized that not only did I not know the answer, but that no one even knows how much the different light types contribute to the brightness of the ground (as seen from space), or the brightness of the night sky (as seen from the ground). (2/)

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@MW1CFN@mastodon.radio 2025-06-16 11:36

@skyglowberlin@fediscience.org A great and valuable study. As a campaigner of over 30 years on LP, the result is what I expected it to be. Here in the UK, proliferation of LP is clearly identified with industrial and domestic settings, including farms. Streelights are well-designed against LP these days. Domestic and industrial units are typically the cheapest and thus worst designed, installed by generalist electricians who think angled lights from buildings or posts (the cheapest mounting option) is OK.

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