Friday, February 08, 2008

THE SUMMER THAW



Another MODIS image taken from NASA's Terra Satellite on January 24, 2008 (top) and January 30, 2008.


The top image of the Antarctic Peninsula showed the fast ice (ice anchored to the land) looking solidly frozen but over the next few days the ice's blue hue changed.
Blue ice is pure ice composed of relatively large crystals. Ice absorbs a tiny amount of red light which makes blue and green light reflect off the surface. The red-absorption is obvious in pure ice because of those large crystals than it is in tiny snow crystals which appear white.
The blue indicates that temperatures have warmed enough to melt the upper snow layer and a thin film of water might also be resting on the surface.
While the change in these images looks dramatic, the summer thaw, which usually begins in early to mid-December, was delayed by the 2007 La Nina causing unusually cold temperatures so this area remained solidly frozen into January 2008


6 comments:

R.H. said...

Why is this blog so dark. I can't read the damn thing!

Lighten up!

Or get a new husband!!!


ROBBERT!!!!!

Brian Hughes said...

A similar event occurs every year in Britain. For two days every summer the sun comes out and the rain gets less cold. At this point thousands of shoppers in their underwear, as white as liver dipped in bleach, all descend on the supermarkets for ice cream and beer.

JahTeh said...

Rh, it's not my fault. My paragraph breaks have disappeared, stupid blogger. Never a new husband, I refuse to cast the pearl I am before swine.

Poor baby, the Fylde and Wyre still not reached double digits in the temperature. Liver isn't white but I do get the bleached pom image quite well.

Brian Hughes said...

Witchy,

Liver is white when it's been cut with tripe, such as some of the scruple-less butchers round these parts are wont to do.

JahTeh said...

Pallid Poms and cut liver, what an image to linger over. I'm not even going to ask how they disguise white tripe in red liver. I hate tripe.

Brian Hughes said...

How do they disguise red liver in white tripe? Bleach, of course. Besides, it's hard to tell what colour it is beneath all the flies.