Abstract
Nighttime light images record the brightness of the Earth surface, indicating the scope and intensity of human activities. However, there are few studies on the long-term changes in global nighttime lights. In this paper, the authors constructed a long time series (1992~2017) nighttime light dataset combining the Defense Meteorological Satellites Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) and the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (NPP-VIIRS) data sources and observed the following: (1) Global nighttime lights have become brighter. The global nighttime brightness in 2017 was 2.2 times that of 1992. Approximately 40.3% of the lighted area was significantly brightened, and an area of 1.3 × 107 km2 transitioned from an unlighted area to a lighted area. (2) Approximately 85.7% of the nighttime light increase occurred in the low-brightness zone (LBZ). Therefore, global brightness has become more uniform than before. (3) China, India, and the United States have led the global lighting trend. The increase in Chinese nighttime lights is the largest, with an average annual growth of 6.48%, followed by the light growth in India, while the United States has the largest brightened area. (4) The changes in nighttime lights in developing countries (e.g., China and India) are closely and positively related to their electricity consumption, industrial added value and gross domestic product (GDP). The shift of the LBZ center from Asia to Africa indicates the intercontinental transition of poverty.
Highlights
Humans use artificial light sources to satisfy the needs of production and residential lighting at night, and they change the brightness distribution of the Earth surface at night
The nighttime light data used in this study include DMSP-OLS data (1992~2013) and NPP-VIIRS data (2013~2017), and both are sourced from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) official website, at https://ngdc.noaa.gov/eog/
A land area of 1.3 × 107 km2 transitioned from an unlighted area to a lighted area, which is equivalent to 0.8 times the area of the United States
Summary
Humans use artificial light sources to satisfy the needs of production and residential lighting at night, and they change the brightness distribution of the Earth surface at night. Nighttime lights reflect the scope and intensity of human nighttime activities, providing a new perspective for traditional geography, economics, and sociology studies such as land change, economic vitality, antipoverty, energy use, environment and ecology, regional conflicts and wars, and community security. Doll et al [2] mapped the spatial distribution of global economic activities based on nighttime light data and socioeconomic development statistics. Frank and John [4] employed nighttime light images to detect the impacts of the long-term conflicts and wars in the Caucasus regions of Russia and Georgia. One of the major deficiencies in the current research is the lack of global-scale, long-term series studies
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