Overview
- Researchers mapped global night light at daily resolution from 2014 to 2022 using about 1.16 million NASA VIIRS “Black Marble” images, which allowed them to spot abrupt changes alongside long-term trends.
- It finds a worldwide increase of about 16 percent, with areas that brightened by 34 percent offset by other regions that dimmed by 18 percent.
- Asia intensified, led by eastern and central China and growth hubs in India where urbanization and rural electrification expanded lighting.
- Europe grew darker overall, with France down 33 percent, the United Kingdom down 22 percent, and the Netherlands down roughly 15 to 21 percent, with a deeper drop in 2022 tied to the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis.
- The authors caution that the satellites are less sensitive to blue-rich LED light, which can make places that switched to LEDs look dimmer in the data than they appear on the ground.