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Atmosphere
Special Issues
Emerging Topics in Light Pollution
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Emerging Topics in Light Pollution

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Atmospheric Techniques, Instruments, and Modeling".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 2637

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Stefan Wallner

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. ICA, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 845 03 Bratislava, Slovakia
2. Department of Astrophysics, University of Vienna, 1180 Wien, Austria
Interests: light pollution; skyglow; measurement; modelling; atmospheric optics; environmental sciences

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Our home planet is currently facing many environmental challenges, presenting a continuously increasing urgency to deal with upcoming problems. Over the past decades, the misuse of artificial light at night (ALAN) has resulted in some sort of pollution, growing in its exigency of multidisciplinary facets—light pollution. As studied in many previous research works, the displacement of the natural dark night has severe negative repercussions on nearly all organisms inhabiting Earth. Particularly worthy of emphasis are the impacts on wildlife, plants, and even human health. Being a symbol for anthropogenic activities around most notable urban areas, light propagation in our atmosphere causes ALAN to cover large distances and intrude into otherwise dark areas of potentially great nocturnal biodiversity.

However, it is the volatile state of Earth’s atmosphere which defines the present state of light pollution. With varying meteorological conditions and atmospheric particles constantly changing in types, density, shapes, sizes, etc., the spatial and temporal distribution of light pollution is alterable, potentially from night to night. In this context, through long-term observations and remote sensing approaches aiming to investigate the development of the phenomenon, we experience innumerable disparate atmospheric conditions influencing collected data. However, it can be summarized that all in situ measurements are affected. Results are differences in the emission shape of lit areas, the city emission function, and in the extent of spread and attenuation of light in the atmosphere.

This Special Issue targets emerging topics in light pollution. While, in general, all submissions regarding light pollution and light scattering are welcome, special focus will be given to:

  • The measurement and analysis techniques of light pollution observations;
  • The quantification of the long-term development of light pollution;
  • Monitoring and remote sensing approaches of light pollution;
  • The relation between light pollution and air pollution/quality;
  • Light propagation and scattering due to varying atmospheric parameters;
  • Radiation transfer in Earth’s atmosphere related to light pollution;
  • Impacts of city emission function with varying atmospheric parameters;
  • Modelling light pollution and atmospheric parameters;
  • Uniting measurements and modelling for light pollution analyses;
  • The usage of new tools and techniques for light pollution observations.

It is an honour to serve as guest editor for this Special Issue and I am looking forward to all submissions.

Dr. Stefan Wallner
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • light pollution
  • artificial light at night
  • environmental monitoring
  • atmospheric optics
  • light scattering
  • measurements
  • modelling

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

51 pages, 150653 KiB  
Article
Exploring the Hidden World of Lighting Flicker with a High-Speed Camera
by Christopher D. Elvidge, Mikhail Zhizhin, Ashley Pipkin, Sharolyn Anderson, William S. Kowalik and Morgan Bazilian
Atmosphere 2024, 15(4), 438; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos15040438 - 2 Apr 2024
Viewed by 1972
Abstract
Alternating current can result in flickering—or pulsing—in the brightness of light emitted by luminaires. Lighting flicker typically occurs in the range of 100 to 140 cycles per second (Hz), which is too fast for visual perception by most organisms. However, evidence indicates that [...] Read more.
Alternating current can result in flickering—or pulsing—in the brightness of light emitted by luminaires. Lighting flicker typically occurs in the range of 100 to 140 cycles per second (Hz), which is too fast for visual perception by most organisms. However, evidence indicates that many organisms perceive flicker with non-visual photoreceptors present on the retinas. Exposure to flickering lights at night disrupts the circadian rhythm of organisms, leading to symptoms similar to blue light exposure at night. The traditional method for detecting flickering is with a flickermeter held near a single light. In this paper, we explore the use of high-speed camera data in the collection of temporal profiles for groups of luminaires simultaneously at distances ranging from several meters to several kilometers. Temporal profiles are extracted for individual lighting features and the full scene. The identification of luminaire types is based on their spectral signatures. With the camera data, it is possible to identify flickering and non-flickering lights, to determine the flicker frequency, to calculate percent flicker and the flicker index, and to identify groups of lights whose flickers are synchronized. Both flickering and non-flickering luminaires can be found for LED, metal halide, fluorescent, and compact fluorescent lights. To date, flickering has been detected in all of the incandescent, high-pressure sodium, and low-pressure sodium luminaires that we measured. We found that flicker synchronization is often present for lights installed within a single facility and also for strings of streetlights. We also found that flicker exposure can come from the light reflected off of the earth’s surface. Luminaires designed to illuminate large areas often saturate high-speed camera data collection. This saturation can be reduced or eliminated using neutral density filters on the camera. Published experimental data on the impacts of flicker on organisms remains sparse. Many studies have drawn inferences on the impacts of spectral and lighting brightness on organisms without controlling for flicker. Our conclusion is that lighting flicker is a type of light pollution. The use of high-speed camera data makes it easier to include flicker as a variable in studies regarding the impacts of lighting on organisms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Topics in Light Pollution)
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