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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Tue Jun 10, 2014, 06:19 AM Jun 2014

NASA Satellite Spies Atmospheric Double Whammy

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/nasa-satellite-modis-clouds-17535



NASA's Aqua satellite snapped this image of a set of swirling eddies called von Kármán vortices and a rainbow-like optical phenomenon called a glory off the coast of Baja California on June 8, 2014.

NASA Satellite Spies Atmospheric Double Whammy
Andrea Thompson
June 9th, 2014

NASA’s eyes in the sky are important parts of weather-monitoring efforts, with satellites tracking hurricanes as they barrel across the ocean and storm systems as they sweep across the country. But sometimes they just find really cool stuff in the atmosphere.

Such is the case with an image taken by the MODIS instrument aboard the Aqua satellite (with a hat tip to Climate Central board member and University of Georgia professor Marshall Shepherd on Twitter). On June 8 it spotted a wow-worthy combo of atmospheric phenomena off the coast of Baja California: von Kármán vortices and a glory. Not meteorologist? Let’s break down what these terms are then.

The von Kármán vortices, named for Hungarian-American physicist Theodore von Kármán, appear as a set of eddies following each other in a line. To explain how they form, it helps to remember that air is a fluid, just like water. Just as a rock can perturb water flowing around it in a stream, an island or some other obstacle can perturb the clouds and air flowing over it.

The aptly-named glory happens when light from the sun is scattered backwards by water droplets in clouds. To an observer on the ground, they appear as a halo of rainbow colors directly opposite the sun in the sky. They are most often seen in thin clouds or fog from mountains or other high ground and from airplanes.
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