Eric MASSON, TVES EA 4477 -Université de Lille / Polytech Lille, France
Jean-Baptiste LITOT, TVES EA 4477 -Université de Lille / Polytech Lille, France
Olivier BLANPAIN, TVES EA 4477 -Université de Lille / Polytech Lille, France
At night, cities’ lights are glowing in the darkness of earth. These lights distribute visibility in direction of the ground for a pedestrian but, at the same time, this glowing halo dazzles and blinds the earth surface from an orbital view point. By concealing the earth surfaces under a glowing blanket, the night lights are putting the ground earth under a glittering darkness from a space view point.
In April 2, 2009 the NASA published a famous world map displaying the night lights of earth. This composite image was a mosaic of a more than 400 satellite images dataset acquired by the VIIRS sensor of the SUOMI NPP satellite. Since then, the “earth view at night” has been established as a regular NASA project with regular data outputs and dissemination.
Our contribution presents a view point from space of a GIS analysis of two geospatial data set: The Corine Land Cover 2012 and the “Nigth Ligths” of 2012 and 2016. Metropolitan areas of Paris, London and Berlin will be studied and compared to illustrate the impact of night lights above their respective land cover.
The invisibility effect of the “night lights” has been computed using a grid calculator where the halo of artificial lights is glowing over different geographical landscapes modeled by the CLC 2012 dataset. These results shows that the city lights at night are not only covering urban fabric but also a variety of urban and suburban landscapes. Through GIS analysis, the “Nigth Ligths” datasets reveals that artificial areas of CLC 2012 lacking of night lights intensity remain in darkness where they shouldn’t. Night lights and light pollution at night are thus a geospatial filter, a glowing blanket, over earth’s landscapes and environments.
The Darkness of earth at night is not only the dark sky sanctuary places where the ground surface is enlighten but also the places where light pollution is hiding landscapes or where the lack of night lights is hiding urban landscapes from a space view point
Mots clés : Night Lights|Landscapes|Paris|London|Berlin
A105067EM