In the midst of summer when the sun does not set at high latitudes one can sometimes catch a glimpse of the mesosphere shortly after sunset or before sunrise. These thin veils, known as noctilucent clouds, are the highest known cloud-like structures forming at about 80km above the surface. At this height, they are still …[Read More]
The indigenous name of the 3405 meter high Fitz Roy mountain in Patagonia, on the border between Argentina and Chile, is frequently translated as “smoking mountain”. This photo may visually explain an origin of this name. On the day the photo was taken, vortices downwind of the peak drew warmer, humid air from below, forming …[Read More]
The image captures an atmospheric extreme event, a so-called sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) that occurred on Feb. 12, 2018. It is visualized through potential vorticity above the North Pole at the 10hPa level (~30km) above the Earth’s surface and consists of a split of the winter polar vortex into two separate vortices that interact with …[Read More]
When it is dark over Ny Ålesund, Svalbard, a bright green laser beam can be seen quite often, shooting from the AWIPEV Arctic Research Base observatory towards the sky. This beam belongs to “KARLi” the Koldewey Aerosol Raman Lidar, run by the Alfred Wegener Institute for more than 25 years, which contributes to long-term, atmospheric …[Read More]
Taken shortly after our departure from Ny-Ålesund after our first “Lost Meteorites” field trial in Greenland testing new equipment that can be used to discover ‘missing’ iron meteorites in Antarctica, the return flight gave incredible views of the surrounding landscape. This photo was taken looking down to the icy waters of Kongsfjorden on the west …[Read More]
Moisture coming from the ground is freezing at the entrances of small ground pockets, shaping wonderful natural ice crystals, during a very cold and dry winter in Poland in 2019. Description by Katarzyna Walczak, after the description on imaggeo.egu.eu. Imaggeo is the EGU’s online open access geosciences image repository. All geoscientists (and others) can submit their photographs …[Read More]
The coating by the ice and the icicles are created through the interplay of wave action and the simultaneous freezing of the water around the exposed tree roots. The reason for the exposed tree roots is increased bank erosion due to a rather unusual circumstance. The combination of the lake not yet being frozen in …[Read More]
Photo of the air chemistry observatory of the German Neumayer III Antarctic station during Polar Day 2017. Located in a clean air sector south of the station, the observatory’s main purpose is to record continuous, year-round data records of relevant particulate and gaseous trace components of the troposphere. As one of only few stations located …[Read More]
This photograph highlights the oxidized surface of diorite boulders, which fall from the ice at the base of the Mullins Glacier in Beacon Valley, Antarctica when the ice moves directly from a solid state into a gas state, without becoming a liquid in between (a process called sublimation). The particular features (morphology) of the varnish …[Read More]
On a late afternoon in Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes, the sun came out from behind the clouds for a brief moment before it went behind the horizon, illuminating the stoss side of an eroding dune. Sand originated from lacustrine deposits in the San Luis Valley; the Sangre de Cristo mountains, which can be seen in …[Read More]
