Atmospheric Optics - II First midterm exam is this Friday!
The exam will be in-class, during our regular lecture • this Friday September 28 at 9:30 am The exam will be CLOSED BOOK • ♦ No textbooks ♦ No calculators ♦ No cheat-sheets Alternate seating • The grades will be posted on WebCT • The exam covers Chapters 1,2,3,4,5, and 19. • The sections which are not covered are listed on the • Class Notes web page. RECAP • Human perception of color, white objects, black objects. Light scattering: light is sent in all directions –forward, sideways and • backward ♦ Geometric scattering: R>>λ (all wavelengths equally scattered) ♦ Mie scattering: R~λ (red is scattered more efficiently) ♦ Rayleigh scattering: R<<λ (blue is scattered more efficiently)
Phenomena: white clouds, blue skies, hazy skies, crepuscular rays, colorful • sunsets, blue moon. TODAY: Refraction: the bending of the light ray as it travels from one medium to • another. It bends towards the vertical if it enters a more-dense medium and away from the vertical as it enters a less-dense medium. ♦ Phenomena: stars appear higher in the sky, twinkling, twilight. • Reflection: the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection • Total internal reflection: mirages Dispersion: separation of colors when light travels through a medium. • ♦ rainbow Reflection and Refraction of Light
The speed of light in vacuum • is c=300,000 km/s
Snell’s law: The angle of • incidence is equal to the angle of reflection.
Light that enters a more- • dense medium slows down and bends toward the normal.
Light that exits a more- • dense medium speeds up and bends away from the normal.
True and apparent position of objects
Due to the refraction of • light the objects on the sky appear higher than they actually are. ♦ Star location and scintillations; ♦ Timing of the sunset and the sunrise; ♦ The sun on the horizon looks flattened; ♦ Twilight. The Timing of the Sunset & Sunrise
We see the sun before it actually rises above the horizon and after it sets below the horizon. Twilight Flattening of the Sun’s Disk at Sunset
Green flash Flattening of the Moon
Refraction by the Earth’s atmosphere (image from ISS)
http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/atoptics/phenom.htm Total Internal Reflection
•The light travels from more dense towards less dense medium. •If the incident angle exceeds the critical angle the light is fully reflected.
Refraction Refraction Total internal reflection (less dense->dense) (dense->less dense) (dense->less dense) water Cold air θ1 θ θ air 1 water cr water air air Hot air θ2 θ2
θ >θ 1 cr Mirages Description: an object is displaced from its true • position. Physical process: the light form the object is strongly • refracted due to changes of the atmospheric density. Classification: • ♦ Inferior: pool on the road, oasis in the desert ♦ Superior: mountains and castles on the sea horizon
Thin layer of hot, less-dense air • Conditions for an inferior (inverted) mirage
• Conditions for a superior (upright) mirage Fata Morgana (a.k.a.Morgan le Fay) Objects on the horizon, such as islands, cliffs, ships or • icebergs, appear elongated and elevated, like "fairy tale castles". It is frequently seen where warm air rests over a cold • surface, such as above large bodies of water and in polar regions A highway mirage A desert mirage
A Fata Morgana seen on the Norwegian coast Sunset mirage Superior mirage: a layer of abnormally warm air above cooler air.
http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/atoptics/phenom.htm Etruscan Vase Sunset Mirage As the sun sinks a second sun appears to rise from the water. The • two eventually join at a thin red colored stem. The lower sun is not a reflection from the water. It is an inferior • mirage. The lower sun, an inverted image of the upper one, is produced by refraction in a lower layer of warm and less dense air.
http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/atoptics/phenom.htm Sunset mirage (pancake suns)
Here the atmosphere's vertical temperature profile is complex. There are at least three layers with different temperatures and the central layer is possibly cooler than those above and below it. Each pancake is an image of a particular slice through the sun. http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/atoptics/phenom.htm Optical Effects from Ice Crystals 22 deg Sun Halo It is caused by randomly oriented ice crystals with a • shape of hexagonal prism. The crystals whose axes are roughly perpendicular to the • direction of sunlight refract its rays through 22º or more. Each sparkles in the sky when it is at this angular distance from the sun. The collective sparkles form the halo. Sun Dogs
Dispersion Tangent Arcs
The long axes of • the ice crystals are horizontal to the ground. Sun pillars
Reflection from plate-like ice crystals that are • horizontally oriented and wobble as they fall Optical effects from water droplets Rainbow
Primary Bow
Secondary Bow
Bright sky inside the bow
Alexander’s dark band
Rainbows are caused by internal reflection of solar light by raindrops. Rainbow Viewing Geometry •The observer is between the sun and the rainbow. •The rainbow angle is 42.5 degrees. Creating a Rainbow
The primary rainbow is caused by in • a single internal reflection from the raindrop. The secondary rainbow is the • result of a double internal out reflection from the surface of the raindrop. The color separation is due to • dispersion of light in the process of refraction. The red color is on the outside of • the primary and on the inside of the secondary bow. Summary
Mirages are caused by atmospheric layers with different densities: • ♦ Inferior (e.g. wet road): cold air over hot air ♦ Superior (e.g. Fata Morgana): hot air over cold air
Water droplets cause: • ♦ Rainbows • Primary • Secondary (2 internal reflections)
Ice crystals cause: • ♦ Sundogs ♦ Halos ♦ Tangents ♦ Sun pillars