Fata Morgana (mirage)

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Fata morgana

A fata morgana is a mirage, an optical phenomenon which results from a temperature inversion. Objects on the horizon, such as islands, cliffs, ships or icebergs, appear elongated and elevated.

In calm weather, the undisturbed interface between warm air over cold dense air near the surface of the ground may act as a refracting lens, producing an upside-down image, over which the distant direct image appears to hover. Fata morgana are usually seen in the morning after a cold night which has resulted in the radiation of heat into space. An early mention of the term fata morgana in English, in 1818,^{[citation needed]} referred to such a mirage noticed in the Strait of Messina,^{[citation needed]} between Calabria and Sicily. It is common in high mountain valleys, such as the San Luis Valley of Colorado, where the effect is exaggerated due to the curvature of the floor of the valley canceling out the curvature of the Earth. They may be seen in Arctic seas on very still mornings, or commonly on Antarctic ice shelves.

Walter Charleton, in his 1654 treatise "Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana," devotes several pages to the description of the famous Morgana of Rhegium, in the Strait of Messina (Book III, Chap. II, Sect. II). He records that a like phenomenon was reported in Africa by Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian writing in the 1st century B.C., and that the Rhegium Fata Morgana was described by Damascius, a Greek Philosopher of the sixth century A.D. In addition, Charleton tells us that Athanasius Kircher described the Rhegium mirage in his book of travels.

The ill-fated Crocker Land Expedition of 1913 was sent to map Crocker Land, a land mass in the Arctic Ocean that turned out to be nothing but a Fata Morgana.

The picture that was taken from Santa Cruz shows Moss Landing and superior mirage

Fata morgana is a much more complex form of superior mirages, which are distinct from the more common inferior mirages. While with a simple superior mirage an observer sees an inverted image below the correct one, with fata morgana an observer would see complex alternation of distorted correct and inverted images.

[edit] Fata Morgana in popular culture

In his novel Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut frequently references the Fata Morgana phenomenon and uses the phrase as a chapter title.
Werner Herzog made a pseudo-documentary film Fata Morgana, which captures mirages in the desert, in 1971.