Light pollution and the concentration of anthropogenic photons in the terrestrial atmosphere

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel way to quantify light pollution by measuring the volume concentration of anthropogenic photons in the atmosphere, aligning it with traditional pollutant metrics for better environmental assessment.

Contribution

It presents explicit conversion equations linking photon volume concentration to conventional light measurement units, offering a new framework for assessing and regulating light pollution.

Findings

Photon volume concentration can be used as a pollutant metric.

The formulation aligns light pollution with classical environmental pollutants.

Provides tools for environmental and health impact assessments.

Abstract

Light pollution can be rigorously described in terms of the volume concentration of anthropogenic photons (light quanta) in the terrestrial atmosphere. This formulation, consistent with the basic physics of the emission, scattering and absorption of light, allows one to express light pollution levels in terms of particle volume concentrations, in a completely analogous way as it is currently done with other classical pollutants, like particulate matter or molecular contaminants. In this work we provide the explicit conversion equations between the photon volume concentration and the traditional light photometry quantities. This equivalent description of the light pollution levels provides some relevant insights that help to identify artificial light at night as a standard pollutant. It also enables a complementary way of expressing artificial light exposures for environmental and public health research and regulatory purposes.