A new Data in Action story, VIIRS Day/Night Band Data Augments Aurora Forecast Model Predictions, highlights how Day/Night Band (DNB) imagery can be used to determine whether a source of light is the result of human activity or an effect of naturally-occurring aurorae.
VIIRS DNB imagery is extremely versatile in its applications and helps researchers track urban growth, assess electrification, monitor disasters, and study the biological impacts of light pollution. However, on nights when an aurora occurs, this natural light can interfere with accurate tracking of anthropogenic light sources. Conversely, researchers focused on space weather would benefit from characterizing spatially explicit auroral activity.
To solve this problem, a research team created an aurora binary mask of VIIRS DNB observations and used it to flag aurora-contaminated observations in the nighttime lights data products. This technique may enhance space weather forecast models—and demonstrates yet another useful application of this versatile remote sensing data.