RT Journal Article
T1 Anthropogenic disruption of the night sky darkness in urban and rural areas
A1 Bará Viñas, Salvador
K1 Astronomy
K1 Environmental monitoring
K1 Wide-area sensing
K1 Light pollution
K1 Atmospheric effects
K1 Photometry
AB The growing emissions of artificial light to the atmosphereare producing, among other effects, a significant increase ofthe night sky brightness (NSB) above its expected naturalvalues. A permanent sensor network has been deployedin Galicia (northwest of Iberian peninsula) to monitor theanthropogenic disruption of the night sky darkness in acountrywide area. The network is composed of 14 detectorsintegrated in automated weather stations of MeteoGalicia, theGalician public meteorological agency. Zenithal NSB readingsare taken every minute and the results are openly availablein real time for researchers, interested stakeholders and thepublic at large through a dedicated website. The measurementsallow one to assess the extent of the loss of the natural nightin urban, periurban, transition and dark rural sites, as well asits daily and monthly time courses. Two metrics are introducedhere to characterize the disruption of the night darkness acrossthe year: the significant magnitude (m1/3) and the moonlightmodulation factor (γ ). The significant magnitude shows thatin clear and moonless nights the zenithal night sky in theanalysed urban settings is typically 14–23 times brighter thanexpected from a nominal natural dark sky. This factor lies in therange 7–8 in periurban sites, 1.6–2.5 in transition regions and0.8–1.6 in rural and mountain dark sky places. The presenceof clouds in urban areas strongly enhances the amount ofscattered light, easily reaching amplification factors in excessof 25, in comparison with the light scattered in the same placesunder clear sky conditions. The periodic NSB modulation dueto the Moon, still clearly visible in transition and rural places,is barely notable at periurban locations and is practically lost aturban sites
PB Royal Society Open Science
SN 2054-5703
YR 2016
FD 2016-10-19
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/16303
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/16303
LA eng
NO Bará S. 2016 Anthropogenic disruption of the night sky darkness in urban and rural areas.R. Soc. open sci.3: 160541. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160541
NO This work was partially funded by the Xunta de Galicia, Programa de Consolidación e Estruturación de Unidades de Investigación Competitivas, grant CN 2012/156, and was partly developed within the framework of the Spanish Network for Light Pollution Studies (Ministerio de Economía y  Competitividad, AYA2015-71542-REDT
DS Minerva
RD 28 abr 2026