Darkness isn't what it used to be - and that's not good

[Judi Lynn]

NOVEMBER 23 2017 - 1:56PM
Amina Khan

Los Angeles: Earth is losing its darkness. A new study using satellite data finds that artificially lit surfaces around the world are spreading and growing brighter, producing more light pollution at night.

The findings, described in the journal Science Advances, track what researchers called a worrisome trend that has implications for the environment as well as human health.



Artificial lights are eating away at dark nights and this has implications for ecological and
evolutionary implications. Photo: Shutterstock

"This is concerning, of course, because we are convinced that artificial light is an environmental pollutant with ecological and evolutionary implications for many organisms - from bacteria to mammals, including us humans - and may reshape entire social ecological systems," Franz Holker of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, one of the study's authors, said in a briefing.

Thanks to electric lights, outdoor lighting grew at a rate of 3 per cent to 6 per cent annually in the second half of the 20th century. While this has benefited human productivity and safety, it has come with a dark side: The night is no longer dark enough.

More:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/darkness-isnt-what-it-used-to-be--and-thats-not-good-20171123-gzravm.html

[msongs]

1. one wonders if that image is a snapshot or a time delay allowing a much brighter picture nt

[Thor_MN]

4. The exposure can't be too long...

The ISS orbits the earth every 92 minutes, so a very long exposure is not possible.

Daylight exposures can be "snapshots" with shutter times like 1/500th of a second. Nightside exposures require longer shutter times and the use of a device to pan the camera at the moving earth.

The point is the contrast between land and sea. Urban and even some rural areas are much more lighted - light pollution.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I recently read a book about this issue.

I'm pretty sure it was The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light by Paul Bogard.

I had the good fortune to spend the first 14 years of my life in rural Upstate New York, where we had wonderful dark skies. I was fascinated by the night sky and learned a bit of astronomy as a child.

I've lived in various big cities most of my life since then. Currently I live in Santa Fe, NM, where I have decently dark skies, but not truly dark ones. I'd love to spend some time say, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, far far away from any artificial light. Sigh. Maybe someday before I die.

[doc03]

3. The first time I went out west to Colorado I was amazed at the number of

stars you could see at night. It was like there were a thousand times more stars there. Here in Ohio
you can rarely see more than a few of the brightest.

[Wounded Bear]

5. I wrote this several years ago, cross posted from the Poetry Group...

Silent Darkness

It’s never truly dark or quiet here.
not the soft secret darkness
of a moonless mountain meadow,
so quiet you can hear a rabbit
rustle across the snow.

We used to stand all evening,
watching snowflakes dance
out of the dark portentous sky,
frosting sable pines and patient firs.

The wind would dart and knife through slender cracks
between our mittens and our sleeves,
between our kerchiefs and our caps
chilling us until we huddled close,
a bitter cold that only love could thaw.

And now, here, the city lights deflect the dark,
the stars are too few, the people too many.
Security lights and night lights,
street lights and headlights
exterminate the dark
yet leaving us with dark and lonely souls.

California winters are not cold, just wet,
with lonely crowds of people that spice the nights.
Dreams are ghosts we only barely know
that dance and weave and flutter through the days.
Not lost, we cannot find the place
we knowingly relinquished long ago.

Solitude cannot traverse the gap
to a god we wish we could believe were there.
For solitude cannot in truth exist
where traffic sounds and radios
and the tramp of feet upstairs
remind us that we’re lonely, not alone.

Silence beckons like a distant dream.
I miss the dark, satin silences
with snowflakes drifting down,
and bitter stars that sparkle
like distant souls that may not touch the earth.

6/13

[DarthDem]

6. That's Fantastic

Wow! Kudos! Wish I could write like that.