The Changing Face Of Light Pollution

[umadog]

Here is an animation from ESA showing how light pollution in Europe has increased:

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/imageoftheweek/Europe-1992-2010-compare-subset_H.gif

It was originally posted on Cloudy Nights, where there some debate as to whether the animation is "real." i.e. is one image simply a scaled version of the other. I suspect not, since not all areas brighten equally. Regardless, I think it's a good animation and worth including if you're writing letters to local government, etc.

[Mr Spock]

Doesn't look very authentic to me.

[umadog]

Well, it's not very scientific in that there's no scale and I couldn't find any good information regarding how it was made. Only this: http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMFD3HY50H_index_0.html

[LukeSkywatcher]

I'm a bit dubious about this animation. Take Portugal for example. In 1992, (according to this image) only 2 or 3 or the big cities in the country had lighting/LP.

In the latest image, it appears as if the whole country is under one big floodlight.

[Darkstar_1]

Looks fake to me. Egypt for example i have been a few times and the delta has never seen that much light,lol.

[KevUU]

There are bits of Algeria that get darker in 2010 which seems bizarre...

The highlands of Scotland don't change at all, Cairo's gone crazy, Republic of Ireland has moderate but not massive increase; I think those sorts of details are convincing me it's probably kosher.

[Monty]

As the age of austerity cuts in, it will be interesting to see how many people decide to cut back on their power bills and reduce light pollution by proxy.