2013/04/24 by Thomas W. Davies, Jonathan Bennie, Richard Inger +1 · 2 citations
Environmental Science · #Impact of Light on Environment and Health #Light pollution #Sky #Brightness #Artificial light #Sky brightness #Night sky #Environmental science #Natural (archaeology) #Pollution #Meteorology #Remote sensing #Ecology #Geography #Astronomy #Biology #Physics #Archaeology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/srep01722
openalex publication_date 2013/04/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Artificial light is globally one of the most widely distributed forms of anthropogenic pollution. However, while both the nature and ecological effects of direct artificial lighting are increasingly well documented, those of artificial sky glow have received little attention. We investigated how city lights alter natural regimes of lunar sky brightness using a novel ten month time series of measurements recorded across a gradient of increasing light pollution. In the city, artificial lights increased sky brightness to levels six times above those recorded in rural locations, nine and twenty kilometers away. Artificial lighting masked natural monthly and seasonal regimes of lunar sky brightness in the city and increased the number and annual regime of full moon equivalent hours available to organisms during the night. The changes have potentially profound ecological consequences.