ArticleScience advances2017
Artificially lit surface of Earth at night increasing in radiance and extent.
Article in Science advances, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 175 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
175 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Artificial Light at Night Consistently Impacts Avian Physiology and Behaviour: A Meta-Analysis.Ecology letters · 2026Pooled it
- Light at night exposure and risk of depression: a meta-analysis of observational studies.Journal of global health · 2025Pooled it
- Influence of light at night on allergic diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC medicine · 2024Pooled it
- A meta-analysis of biological impacts of artificial light at night.Nature ecology & evolution · 2021Pooled it
- Chronic sleep restriction greatly magnifies performance decrements immediately after awakening.Sleep · 2019Trial
- Area-Consistent Aggregation of SDGSAT-1 Nighttime Light Data: A Radiant Flux Framework for Cross-City Population Estimation.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Mitigating artificial light at night: effectiveness of policies and implications for plant phenology.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Brighter nights, greater health risks: intensity-dependent disruptions by nighttime light exposure on sleep and metabolism in diurnal zebra finches.Photochemical & photobiological sciences : Official journal of the European Photochemistry Association and the European Society for Photobiology · 2026Article
- Global Trends in Light Pollution and Their Relationship With Socioeconomic Factors.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Higher light at night exposure is associated with increased risk of diabetes mellitus: A cross-sectional study of the NHANES database.Medicine · 2026Article
- Can you hear me? House sparrow auditory processing differs across an urbanization gradient.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Article
- Article
- The Analysis of Urban Nighttime Light Spatial Heterogeneity and Driving Factors Based on SDGSAT-1 Data.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Prenatal Exposure to Artificial Light at Night and the Offspring's First 1000-Day Growth: A Prospective Metabolomic and Gene-Environment Interaction Study.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
- The sensory ecology of caterpillars.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Review
- The diversity of lepidopteran spatial orientation strategies - neuronal mechanisms and emerging challenges in a changing world.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Review
- Influence of Artificial Light at Night on Thyroid Gland Histology inAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Mitigating light pollution impacts on arthropods based on light-emitting diode properties.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2026Article
- Light pollution: environmental and health impacts at high latitudes.Photochemical & photobiological sciences : Official journal of the European Photochemistry Association and the European Society for Photobiology · 2026Review
- Nighttime light dynamics reveal peri-urban brightening and population decoupling in the Chengdu Chongqing megaregion.Scientific reports · 2026Article
115 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A central aim of the "lighting revolution" (the transition to solid-state lighting technology) is decreased energy consumption. This could be undermined by a rebound effect of increased use in response to lowered cost of light. We use the first-ever calibrated satellite radiometer designed for night lights to show that from 2012 to 2016, Earth's artificially lit outdoor area grew by 2.2% per year, with a total radiance growth of 1.8% per year. Continuously lit areas brightened at a rate of 2.2% per year. Large differences in national growth rates were observed, with lighting remaining stable or decreasing in only a few countries. These data are not consistent with global scale energy reductions but rather indicate increased light pollution, with corresponding negative consequences for flora, fauna, and human well-being.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.