GeoLog

Imaggeo on Mondays: Airplane views of the Alps

Imaggeo on Mondays: Airplane views of the Alps

The forward scattering of sunlight, which is caused by a large number of aerosol particles (moist haze) in Alpine valleys, gives the mountain massifs a rather plastic appearance.

The hazy area in the foreground lies above the Koenigsee lake; behind it the Watzmann, Hochkalter, Loferer Steinberge and Wilder Kaiser massifs loom up behind one other to the right of the centre line. Behind them is the wide Inn valley, which extends right across the picture. In the far distance in the middle of the picture, the Wetterstein massif projects upwards with the Zugspitze mountain as its highest peak.

The left side shows Steinernes Meer, Leoganger Steinberge and a sequence of at least 10 mountain chains that extend as far as Kellerjoch, which is in front of the whitish area of haze above Innsbruck. The noon sounding from Munich showed that relative humidity exceeded 75% up to 1,400 m above sea level, with distinctly lower values above (less than 20 %).

The view is from an aircraft window approximately 10 km to the east of the Salzach valley.

Description by Hans Volkert, as published previously on imaggeo.egu.eu

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Laura Roberts Artal is the Outreach and Dissemination Manager at The Water Innovation Hub (University of Sheffield). Laura also volunteers as the Associate Director of Communications for Geology for Global Development. She has also held a role in industry as Marketing Manager for PDS Ava (part of PDS Group). Laura was the Communications Officer at the European Geosciences Union from the summer of 2014 to the end of 2017. Laura is a geologist by training and holds a PhD in palaeomagnetism from the University of Liverpool. She tweets at @LauRob85.


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