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Fata Morgana of Santa Cruz shoreline as seen from Moss Landing. That animation shows how the land forms are changing due to a superior mirage. The time interval between the first and the last pictures is 33 minutes. Here's what Andy Young - a mirage specialist says about the animation:

"Well, this starts out as a classical superior mirage, with just one inverted image visible. (It's probably really a 3-image mirage, with the top erect image so compressed as to be invisible.) Then as the inversion becomes stronger, the 3rd image becomes prominently visible -- and finally you get a 5-image mirage! A nice example indeed.

In an intermediate stage, you get quite a nice Fata Morgana effect, with the stretched zones alternating with compressed ones.

I am tempted to say that the magnification in the vertically stretched zone, between the horizon and the first inverted image, is due to the curvature of the Earth (and the inversion): the effective "reflecting" layer is concave downward, so it acts as a magnifying mirror. I think this would be Wegener's interpretation; but I should really do some simulations of these mirage to be sure this is even an approximately correct explanation. In this case, the two upper images would be interpreted as a reflection of the 3-image mirage in the closer part of the inversion -- really a sort of "mirage of a mirage"."

self-made

05/07/2007

Mila Zinkova

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