Snowglow — The Amplification of Skyglow by Snow and Clouds can Exceed Full Moon Illuminance in Suburban Areas
Artificial skyglow, the fraction of artificial light at night that is emitted upwards from Earth and subsequently scattered back within the atmosphere, depends on atmospheric conditions but also on the ground albedo. One effect that has not gained much attention so far is the amplification of skyglo...
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ftgfzpotsdam:oai:gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de:item_5000494 2023-05-15T13:11:36+02:00 Snowglow — The Amplification of Skyglow by Snow and Clouds can Exceed Full Moon Illuminance in Suburban Areas Jechow, A. Hölker 2019 application/pdf https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5000494 https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5000494_1/component/file_5000588/5000494.pdf eng eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.3390/jimaging5080069 https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5000494 https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5000494_1/component/file_5000588/5000494.pdf info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Journal of Imaging info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2019 ftgfzpotsdam https://doi.org/10.3390/jimaging5080069 2022-09-14T05:57:16Z Artificial skyglow, the fraction of artificial light at night that is emitted upwards from Earth and subsequently scattered back within the atmosphere, depends on atmospheric conditions but also on the ground albedo. One effect that has not gained much attention so far is the amplification of skyglow by snow, particularly in combination with clouds. Snow, however, has a very high albedo and can become important when the direct upward emission is reduced when using shielded luminaires. In this work, first results of skyglow amplification by fresh snow and clouds measured with all-sky photometry in a suburban area are presented. Amplification factors for the zenith luminance of 188 for snow and clouds in combination and 33 for snow alone were found at this site. The maximum zenith luminance of nearly 250 mcd/m2 measured with snow and clouds is a factor of 1000 higher than the commonly used clear sky reference of 0.25 mcd/m2. Compared with our darkest zenith luminance of 0.07 mcd/m2 measured for overcast conditions in a very remote area, this leads to an overall amplification factor of ca. 3500. Horizontal illuminance measurements show values of up to 0.79 lx, exceeding maximum possible full-moon illuminance levels by more than a factor of two. Additional measurements near the Arctic Circle for clear and overcast conditions are presented and strategies for further studies are discussed. We propose the term “snowglow” to describe the amplification of skyglow by snow with and without clouds. Article in Journal/Newspaper albedo Arctic GFZpublic (German Research Centre for Geosciences, Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam) Arctic Journal of Imaging 5 8 69 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
GFZpublic (German Research Centre for Geosciences, Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam) |
op_collection_id |
ftgfzpotsdam |
language |
English |
description |
Artificial skyglow, the fraction of artificial light at night that is emitted upwards from Earth and subsequently scattered back within the atmosphere, depends on atmospheric conditions but also on the ground albedo. One effect that has not gained much attention so far is the amplification of skyglow by snow, particularly in combination with clouds. Snow, however, has a very high albedo and can become important when the direct upward emission is reduced when using shielded luminaires. In this work, first results of skyglow amplification by fresh snow and clouds measured with all-sky photometry in a suburban area are presented. Amplification factors for the zenith luminance of 188 for snow and clouds in combination and 33 for snow alone were found at this site. The maximum zenith luminance of nearly 250 mcd/m2 measured with snow and clouds is a factor of 1000 higher than the commonly used clear sky reference of 0.25 mcd/m2. Compared with our darkest zenith luminance of 0.07 mcd/m2 measured for overcast conditions in a very remote area, this leads to an overall amplification factor of ca. 3500. Horizontal illuminance measurements show values of up to 0.79 lx, exceeding maximum possible full-moon illuminance levels by more than a factor of two. Additional measurements near the Arctic Circle for clear and overcast conditions are presented and strategies for further studies are discussed. We propose the term “snowglow” to describe the amplification of skyglow by snow with and without clouds. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jechow, A. Hölker |
spellingShingle |
Jechow, A. Hölker Snowglow — The Amplification of Skyglow by Snow and Clouds can Exceed Full Moon Illuminance in Suburban Areas |
author_facet |
Jechow, A. Hölker |
author_sort |
Jechow, A. |
title |
Snowglow — The Amplification of Skyglow by Snow and Clouds can Exceed Full Moon Illuminance in Suburban Areas |
title_short |
Snowglow — The Amplification of Skyglow by Snow and Clouds can Exceed Full Moon Illuminance in Suburban Areas |
title_full |
Snowglow — The Amplification of Skyglow by Snow and Clouds can Exceed Full Moon Illuminance in Suburban Areas |
title_fullStr |
Snowglow — The Amplification of Skyglow by Snow and Clouds can Exceed Full Moon Illuminance in Suburban Areas |
title_full_unstemmed |
Snowglow — The Amplification of Skyglow by Snow and Clouds can Exceed Full Moon Illuminance in Suburban Areas |
title_sort |
snowglow — the amplification of skyglow by snow and clouds can exceed full moon illuminance in suburban areas |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5000494 https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5000494_1/component/file_5000588/5000494.pdf |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
albedo Arctic |
genre_facet |
albedo Arctic |
op_source |
Journal of Imaging |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.3390/jimaging5080069 https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5000494 https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5000494_1/component/file_5000588/5000494.pdf |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/jimaging5080069 |
container_title |
Journal of Imaging |
container_volume |
5 |
container_issue |
8 |
container_start_page |
69 |
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1766248114930319360 |