California Sunset: The Novaya Zemlya Effect | Earth Science
"I have seen quite a few Novaya Zemlya sunsets but the one I saw on March 17 was special. The sunset was delayed for 14 minutes! At times, it felt as the universe stands still.Thanks to the Novaya Zemlya effect, this pancaked sun stayed visible until it was geometrically 3.4° below the horizon."
The Novaya Zemlya effect is an atmospheric refraction phenomenon that is occasionally seen over large flat areas of the Earth's surface. The effect consists of the trapping of light rays within the lower layers of the atmosphere. The process can be transmitted over hundreds of kilometers around the curvature of the Earth. The effect appears when direct rays from the sun are trapped so that the image of the sun appears, although the sun is well below the horizon. This effect is named because it was first observed on the arctic island of Novaya Zemlya—an archipelago in northern Russia.
The first person to record the phenomenon was Gerrit de Veer, a member of Willem Barentsz's ill-fated third expedition into the north polar region in 1596–1597. Trapped by the ice, the party was forced to stay for the winter in a makeshift lodge on the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya and endure the polar night.
On January 24, 1597, De Veer and another crew member claimed to have seen the Sun appear above the horizon, approximately two weeks prior to its calculated return. They were met with disbelief by the rest of the crew—who accused De Veer of having used the old Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar introduced several years earlier—but on January 27, the Sun was seen by all "in his full roundnesse". For centuries the account was the source of skepticism, until in the 20th century the phenomenon was finally proven to be genuine.
Apart from the image of the Sun, the effect can also elevate the image of other objects above the horizon, such as coastlines that are normally invisible due to their distance. After studying the Saga of Erik the Red, Waldemar Lehn concluded that the effect may have aided the Vikings in their discovery of Iceland and Greenland that are not visible from the mainland under normal atmospheric conditions.
San Francisco, California, is located on a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, making it a coastal city.
California is a state in the Western United States that lies on the Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California to the south.
Location: San Francisco, California, USA
Date: March 17, 2026
No comments:
Post a Comment