Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\nA nighttime view of Earth, derived from satellite images taken daily over the past decade, capturing human activity on the planet through the emissions of artificial light.Michala Garrison\/NASA Earth Observatory\/via Reuters<\/p>\n
Researchers documented a 16 per cent net increase in global nighttime light from 2014 to 2022, but showed it was not a steady brightening but rather a patchwork of increasing and decreasing regional brightness shaped by numerous factors. The United States in 2022 had by far the highest total luminosity of any country, followed by China, India, Canada and Brazil.<\/p>\n
Brightening was found to be propelled mainly by rapid urbanization, infrastructure expansion and rural electrification.<\/p>\n
Dimming, however, had two very different drivers. Abrupt dimming was usually caused by natural disasters, power grid failures and armed conflicts. Gradual dimming was often deliberate, guided by government regulations, transitions to energy-efficient LED lights and efforts to cut light pollution.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor decades, we\u2019ve held a simplified view that the Earth at night is just getting steadily brighter as human population and economies grow,\u201d said Zhe Zhu, a professor of remote sensing and director of the University of Connecticut\u2019s Global Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory, senior author of the study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discovered that the Earth\u2019s nightscape is actually highly volatile,\u201d Zhu said. \u201cThe planet\u2019s lighting footprint is constantly expanding, contracting and shifting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers used more than a million daily images obtained by a U.S. government Earth-observation satellite and processed by NASA. Previous global studies relied mostly on annual or monthly composite satellite images.<\/p>\n
The most dramatic brightening occurred in emerging economies, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. It was led by Somalia, Burundi and Cambodia, followed by several African nations including Ghana, Guinea and Rwanda.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t just urbanization. It is a massive expansion of energy access,\u201d Zhu said. \u201cThese numbers represent a profound shift as entire regions transition from near-total darkness to becoming part of the global electric network.\u201d<\/p>\n
Massive light loss occurred in countries such as Lebanon, Ukraine, Yemen and Afghanistan, where light was a casualty of armed conflict and infrastructure collapse. Similar declines were observed in Haiti and Venezuela, where dimming was more closely associated with prolonged economic crises and unreliable energy supply.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Ukraine, we observed a sharp, sustained decrease in light that aligned perfectly with the escalation of the conflict in February, 2022,\u201d when Russia launched a large-scale invasion, Zhu said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see similar abrupt darkness falling over regions in the Middle East during periods of conflict,\u201d Zhu said.<\/p>\n
Europe experienced a 4 per cent net decrease in nighttime light radiance, largely due to technological advances and environmental policies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is driven by a widespread shift from older, less-efficient street lights like high-pressure sodium lamps to newer, directional LED systems, as well as strict national energy-efficiency mandates and dark-sky conservation efforts,\u201d Zhu said. \u201cEurope is fascinating because it presents a very structured dimming pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zhu called France a world leader in dark-sky conservation and energy-efficiency mandates.<\/p>\n
Study co-author Christopher Kyba, a professor of nighttime light remote sensing at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, added: \u201cThe dimming in France that took place because of deliberate decisions to turn street lights off late at night when there is no longer any activity on the streets is extraordinary. It will be very interesting to see how this develops over time, and whether this practice expands beyond France.\u201d<\/p>\n
The United States registered a 6 per cent net light increase during the study period.<\/p>\n
\u201cGeographically, the USA offers a microcosm of this global light complexity. The West Coast largely brightened, consistent with population growth and vibrant tech economies. However, much of the East Coast and Midwest actually dimmed. This was driven by de-densification in older urban cores, the decline of certain manufacturing sectors, and aggressive adoption of smart, energy-efficient city lighting programs like those in Washington, D.C., and Chicago,\u201d Zhu said.<\/p>\n
Large-scale illumination began with gaslights in cities in the early 19th century, followed by electric lights later that century \u2013 and a relentless increase since. Cities and towns glow at night, obscuring most of the stars that once shone above.<\/p>\n
\u201cLight pollution has profound ecological consequences, disrupting nocturnal ecosystems, animal migrations and human circadian rhythms,\u201d Zhu said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daily satellite observations have revealed a continued nighttime brightening globally due to artificial lighting, with important regional variations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,66,306,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":{"0":"post-591446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-ca","15":"tag-canada","16":"tag-canada-news","17":"tag-canada-sports","18":"tag-canada-sports-news","19":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","20":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","21":"tag-canadian-news","22":"tag-economy","23":"tag-education","24":"tag-environment","25":"tag-federal-government","26":"tag-foreign-news","27":"tag-globe-and-mail","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","29":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","30":"tag-government","31":"tag-life-news","32":"tag-lifestyle","33":"tag-local-news","34":"tag-manitoba","35":"tag-national-news","36":"tag-new-brunswick","37":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","38":"tag-northwest-territories","39":"tag-nova-scotia","40":"tag-nunavut","41":"tag-ontario","42":"tag-pei","43":"tag-photos","44":"tag-political-news","45":"tag-political-opinion","46":"tag-politics","47":"tag-politics-news","48":"tag-quebec","49":"tag-science","50":"tag-space","51":"tag-sports-news","52":"tag-technology","53":"tag-travel","54":"tag-trudeau","55":"tag-us-news","56":"tag-world-news","57":"tag-yukon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}