How to See Rare ‘glow at Night’ Clouds Thanks to Climate Change
The era of silvery clouds has come. Glowing clouds at night are historically rare beautiful formations of shimmering ice crystals hanging in the upper atmosphere, which in past years were only visible in the northern parts of the world. However, they have been steadily creeping south for four decades, so this year you can see this unique phenomenon from your backyard.
Although noctilucent clouds are often present in the upper atmosphere, they are not usually visible unless atmospheric conditions are correct. Traditionally, the peak season for seeing these swirling night clouds is late June and late July, and while they were previously only visible in the United States in Alaska and the northernmost parts of the lower 48, global warming is making “NLCs visible.” ” is more common in more places. Hooray?
What are noctilucent clouds?
Noctilucent clouds, or NLCs, first discovered in 1885, are clouds of ice that form at the edge of space, 47 to 53 miles above the earth. They usually appear as blue or white swirls, visible only during the darkest hours of summer. NLCs are most visible between 50 and 60 degrees latitude, but have been getting brighter lately and moving as far south as Los Angeles, where people reported seeing them in 2019 .
Why are noctilucent clouds now more visible?
Noctilucent clouds are invisible most of the time – the sky is too bright to see the light reflecting off them during the day. But in the middle of the night, the lower part of the atmosphere is in the shadow of the earth, and the upper part of the atmosphere is illuminated by light.
Small changes in the atmosphere can significantly change these clouds. Global warming has led to an increase in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, which has led to an increase in the size of the noctilucent clouds that are visible over most of the planet. As the world warms up more, we should see even more noctilucent clouds . (Again, right?)
How to see noctilucent clouds this summer
Glowing clouds at night are only visible when the sky is clear of lower clouds and during the darkest hours of the night. To see them, go outside around midnight and look north. The best view requires an unobstructed northern view of the entire horizon. The view is impressive to the naked eye, but you may need binoculars to get a close-up view of the complex structure of these clouds.
If you’re lucky, you’ll see a few glowing white or gold wisps relatively low on the horizon. If you’re really lucky, thin clouds will grow and change color until electric blues, golds, and silver swirls, swirls, and waves stretch across the sky.
We are now in peak NLC season, mid-June to July, but you can’t predict which nights formations might appear more than a few hours in advance. In the past, you had to go out every night and hope, but sky watchers around the world are using technology to share NLC information and alert each other to these elusive cloud formations.
Subscribe to these social media groups to receive advance news about noctilucent clouds.
Anyone to your east will be the first to see the NLC, and fans of this phenomenon will be only too happy to warn you that it’s coming. You can subscribe to the Noctilucent Cloud Alerts twitter channel where users upload photos of events and send out information; join a similar group on Facebook ; or follow #noctilucent on twitter or instagram . I’m assuming all these channels go crazy when the night clouds show up. We hope that this summer we all will have the opportunity to see this strange, wonderful phenomenon.