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Earth in the Night from Space: Nighttime Lights Time Series by DMSP Satellites (1992-2013 : Google Maps Version) |
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1. Summary
The nighttime of the earth is visualized on Google Maps for East Asia. The detail of this data can be found at Earth in the Night: Nighttime Lights of the World Data by DMSP Satellites.
This page uses Version 4 DMSP-OLS Nighttime Lights Time Series. The resolution is 30 second (about 1km), covering from 65S to 75N degree latitude. Data is divided by year from 1992 to 2013, and also by 6 DMSP satellites from F10 to F18, resulting in the time series of 33 datasets. The target is "stable lights" showing lights from cities, towns, and other sites with persistent lighting, including gas flares. The data quantize the intensity of light into 63 levels, but the value is not proportional to the actual intensity of lights (saturated at bright areas). We also need to calibrate the difference of satellites for precise comparison between different times and places.
2. Google Maps
This page initially shows the data of F18 satellite for the year 2013 (F182013), but you can switch to other datasets by clicking links below. You can see data for the whole globe, but higher resolution data is available for Japan and East to South East Asia. In the terminology of Google Maps, to level 7 for the whole world, and to level 10 around Japan.
Credit: Image and data processing by NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center. DMSP data collected by US Air Force Weather Agency.
3. Sites Using this Data
The following sites are using the data of this page.