Particulate matter as an amplifier for astronomical light pollution

Ściężor, Tomasz; Kubala, Marek

doi:10.1093/mnras/stu1577

Cited by 20 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Daytime aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements show a slight decrease in the last hours before the nights of measurement from 2017 to 2020 (see Appendix C). The absence of polluting aerosols will reduce skyglow as shown in a study in Cracow, Poland [24], but also means less extinction towards the satellite, which is exactly what we have observed.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Evidence That Reduced Air and Road Traffic Decreased Artificial Night-Time Skyglow during COVID-19 Lockdown in Berlin, Germany

Jechow

Hölker

2020

Remote Sensing

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Artificial skyglow, the brightening of the night sky by artificial light at night that is scattered back to Earth within the atmosphere, is detrimental to astronomical observations and has an impact on ecosystems as a form of light pollution. In this work, we investigated the impact of the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the urban skyglow of Berlin, Germany. We compared night sky brightness and correlated color temperature (CCT) measurements obtained with all-sky cameras during the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020 with data from March 2017. Under normal conditions, we expected an increase in night sky brightness (or skyglow, respectively) and CCT because of the transition to LED. This is supported by a measured CCT shift to slightly higher values and a time series analysis of night-time light satellite data showing an increase in artificial light emission in Berlin. However, contrary to this observation, we measured a decrease in artificial skyglow at zenith by 20% at the city center and by more than 50% at 58 km distance from the center during the lockdown. We assume that the main cause for the reduction of artificial skyglow originates from improved air quality due to less air and road traffic, which is supported by statistical data and satellite image analysis. To our knowledge, this is the first reported impact of COVID-19 on artificial skyglow and we conclude that air pollution should shift more into the focus of light pollution research.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Evidence That Reduced Air and Road Traffic Decreased Artificial Night-Time Skyglow during COVID-19 Lockdown in Berlin, Germany

Jechow

Hölker

2020

Remote Sensing

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“…Until recently, understanding of typical levels and patterns of skyglow has been extremely poor. The invention of robust and easy to use light meters like the “Sky Quality Meter” (SQM; Unihedron), however, has resulted in a boom in skyglow measurement 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 . This has led to some understanding of patterns on a local scale, and emphasized the need for comparative studies across different regions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Worldwide variations in artificial skyglow

Kyba

Tong

Bennie

et al. 2015

Sci Rep

154

127

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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.

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“…Given the fact that the calculation of atmospheric diffuse flux is a rather complicated problem that requires a detailed treatment of multiple scatterings (Kocifaj & Bará 2019) and knowledge of atmospheric composition such as aerosols, ozone and particulate matter (Joseph et al 1991;Ściężor & Kubala 2014;Ściężor & Czaplicka 2020). it is expected that the residuals of Δ mdl−obs show discrepancies.…”

Section: Models and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correcting Sky Quality Meter measurements for aging effects using twilight as calibrator

Puschnig,

Näslund,

Schwope

et al. 2020

Preprint

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In the last decade numerous Sky Quality Meters (SQMs) were installed throughout the globe, aiming to assess the temporal change of the night sky brightness (NSB), and thus the change in light pollution. However, it has become clear that SQM readings may be affected by aging effects such as degradation of the sensor sensitivity and/or loss of transmissivity of optical components (filter, housing window). To date, the magnitude of the darkening has not been assessed in a systematic way. We report for the first time on the quantification of the SQM aging effect and describe the applied method. We combine long-term SQM measurements obtained between 2011 and 2019 in Potsdam-Babelsberg (23 km to the southwest of the center of Berlin), Vienna and Stockholm with a readily available empirical twilight model, which serves as calibrator. Twilight SQM observations, calibrated for changing sun altitudes, reveal a linear degradation of the measurement systems (SQM + housing window) with the following slopes: 34±4, 46±2 and 53±2 milli-mag SQM arcsec −2 yr −1 for Stockholm, Potsdam-Babelsberg and Vienna. With the highest slope found in Vienna (latitude ∼48 • ) and the lowest one found in Stockholm (latitude ∼59 • ), we find an indication for the dependence of the trend on solar irradiance (which is a function of geographic latitude).

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Particulate matter as an amplifier for astronomical light pollution

Cited by 20 publications

References 25 publications

Evidence That Reduced Air and Road Traffic Decreased Artificial Night-Time Skyglow during COVID-19 Lockdown in Berlin, Germany

Evidence That Reduced Air and Road Traffic Decreased Artificial Night-Time Skyglow during COVID-19 Lockdown in Berlin, Germany

Worldwide variations in artificial skyglow

Correcting Sky Quality Meter measurements for aging effects using twilight as calibrator

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