|
| |||
 |
WeatherQuesting
Also,
WonderQuest
with April Holladay
|
 
 |
|
| ||||||||
|
Green flashes at the PolesQ: Do they have green flashes at the South Pole?A: Yes. "...at the South [and North] Poles, where there is one sunset per year that takes many days to occur, green flashes and 'blue flashes' can last for many hours to days," says Russell Schnell, Observatory Operations director at NOAA's Climate Monitoring & Diagnostic Laboratory. A green or blue flash is a phenomenon where the atmosphere, acting as a prism, bends the Sun's rays at sunset. This causes the top edge of the Sun to turn blue, for a moment since the prism bends blue light the most. In extremely clear air, such as you find at the poles, the top edge looks blue. Otherwise, blue light interacts more with the atmosphere and scatters, causing the top edge to look green. (Answered Aug. 30, 2002; updated Oct. 25, 2007) Further Surfing:U of Chicago: pictures of the South Pole's green flash Click for printer version. |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
