Light pollution: Nights to be lost in most densely populated regions across globe, warn scientists

While an existing study led by Roi Maor from Tel Aviv University and UCL indicates towards the nocturnal life of human being before the annihilation of non-avian dinosaurs, a German-led term has come up with a bad news for all sorts of creatures including humans.

The latest findings which appeared in the journal 'Science Advances' suggests that a surging light pollution is threating nocturnal life across the globe as the distinction between day and night will disappear in the most heavily populated countries anytime soon.

This rapid change is a serious threat to human health and the environment, the research said.

"We're losing more and more of the night on a planetary scale," journal editor Kip Hodges was quoted while talking about their findings.

Christopher Kyba from the German Research Centre for Geosciences further suggests that the artificially lit area of the Earth's surface grew by 2.2 percent per year from 2012 t0 2016.

During the process, Kyba captured a bunch of images, one of which shows the change in the amount of nighttime lighting from 2012 to 2016.

"Earth's night is getting brighter," Kyba stated further.

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While the entire planet will be affected more or less due to this sudden surge in the pollution, the areas in the Middle East and Asia will suffer most.

The observed 'decrease' in Western Australia is actually due to wildfires in 2012 that were visible from space.

"In the near term, it appears that artificial light emission into the environment will continue to increase, further eroding Earth's remaining land area that experiences natural day-night light cycles," the study concluded.

"While we know that LEDs save energy in specific projects," Kyba was quoted while interacting with reporters at a teleconference.

"when we look at our data and we look at the national and the global level, it indicates that these savings are being offset by either new or brighter light in other places," she added.

"Artificial light at night is a very new stressor," said Franz Holker, one of the paper's authors.

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"The problem is that light has been introduced in places, times and intensities at which it does not naturally occur and many organisms, there is no chance to adapt to this new stressor," Holker stated.

"In the longer term, perhaps the demand for dark skies and unlit bedrooms will begin to outweigh the demand for light in wealthy countries," the team of authors wrote.