Impacts of surface albedo variations on the night sky brightness – A numerical and experimental analysis

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze surface albedo impacts on artificial night sky brightness at zenith. The way in which these parameters correlate with each other is analyzed numerically and then experimentally by Sky Quality Meters (SQMs) in the city of Linz, Austria between 2016 and 2018. Three SQMs are located in city areas that differ in ground type, while other two are installed outside but near the city. To eliminate systematic errors of different SQMs or a missing inter-calibration of all devices, we examine relative change in zenithal brightness instead of its absolute values. However, the ground albedo not only depends on the ground type, but also shows seasonal variation most often driven by vegetation and environmental change. To understand these changes, we use SkyGlow simulator to perform numerical experiments on four different albedo models. The results have proven that seasonal variations are clearly visible as green city parts become darker around autumn and ratios to urban located SQMs increase. We show that there is a major difference in simulation results if either conducting city parts with various surface albedos or using only one averaged value over the whole city. The latter produces worse fit to the observed SQM data, implying that a use of various surface albedos is a need when modeling zenithal brightness in artificially lit areas of a city or town. Also, the seasonal changes of surface albedo cannot be neglected and the parameter itself must be included in the modeling tools.