Word at night: change of illumination 1993-2003

[Penguin]

Pretty interesting: https://plus.google.com/photos/107101208158314368393/albums/5675182440124907857 (site needs jscript)

And because we are an eurocentric board, here's a big pic of our home country:

http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/9863/78107911.jpg


- Red lights appeared during that period
- Orange and yellow areas are regions of high and low intensity lighting respectively that increased in brightness over the ten years.
- Grey areas are unchanged.
- Pale blue and dark blue areas are of low and high intensity lighting that decreased in brightness.
- Very dark blue areas were present in 1993 and had disappeared by 2003.

[Skybird]

What is that blue/decreasing "dent" over the North Sea? Couldn't be all island there. Oil platforms that have been given up? Would they even show up on this map?

It seems there was a shift from Eastern rural places/countries to central places more Western or in the West.

[Dowly]

What are those thingies in the North Sea? Oil rigs? :06:

Moscow looks cool, can clearly see the ringed design of the city.

[Penguin]

Yes, I think the lights in the North Sea are oil rigs, the decrease of intensity fits to the decrease in the oil production there.

I've seen night pictures of Asia where you could see big accumulations of lights off the Japanese coast which were their fishing fleets, so the light of oil platforms can definitely be seen. If you look closely at the North America picture you can also see the lights of the US oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, south of Lousiana.

Speaking of Asia: Check out the difference between South Korea and North Korea! :o

[Gerald]

Nice view,:DL