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Autori principali: Bará, Salvador, Lima, Raul C.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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Accesso online:https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.05981
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author Bará, Salvador
Lima, Raul C.
author_facet Bará, Salvador
Lima, Raul C.
contents Wind farm lights are a conspicuous feature in the nocturnal landscape. Their presence is a source of light pollution for residents and the environment, severely disrupting in some places the aesthetic, cultural, and scientific values of the pristine starry skies. In this work we present a simple model for quantifying the visual impact of individual wind turbine lights, based on the comparison of their brightnesses with the brightness of well-known night sky objects. The model includes atmospheric and visual variables, and for typical parameters it shows that medium-intensity turbine lights can be brighter than Venus up to ~4 km from the turbine, brighter than alpha CMa (the brightest star on the nighttime sky) until about ~10 km, and reach the standard stellar visibility limit for the unaided eye (m_v=+6.00) at ~38 km. These results suggest that the visual range of wind farms at nighttime may be significantly larger than at daytime, a factor that should be taken into account in environmental impact assessments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_05981
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantifying the visual impact of wind farm lights on the nocturnal landscape
Bará, Salvador
Lima, Raul C.
Physics and Society
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Optics
Wind farm lights are a conspicuous feature in the nocturnal landscape. Their presence is a source of light pollution for residents and the environment, severely disrupting in some places the aesthetic, cultural, and scientific values of the pristine starry skies. In this work we present a simple model for quantifying the visual impact of individual wind turbine lights, based on the comparison of their brightnesses with the brightness of well-known night sky objects. The model includes atmospheric and visual variables, and for typical parameters it shows that medium-intensity turbine lights can be brighter than Venus up to ~4 km from the turbine, brighter than alpha CMa (the brightest star on the nighttime sky) until about ~10 km, and reach the standard stellar visibility limit for the unaided eye (m_v=+6.00) at ~38 km. These results suggest that the visual range of wind farms at nighttime may be significantly larger than at daytime, a factor that should be taken into account in environmental impact assessments.
title Quantifying the visual impact of wind farm lights on the nocturnal landscape
topic Physics and Society
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.05981