![]() Similar illusions, including fata morgana which involves the apparent layering of an object, have been reported by sailors for centuries and are believed responsible for old legends like ghost ships or floating cities. That’s also true for the sun or moon, it can actually be below the horizon but as a result of the atmospheric refraction it’s actually visible to you for those extra seconds and minutes.” 9, Simone Engels captured what she thought was an iceberg, but instead a unique projection. While photographing the evening sunset on Sunday, Jan. “When you’re looking through different densities of atmosphere, you can change where an object might be looking. If you look at the image where I zoomed in, to me it doesn’t look like an image that was fuzzy on the edges, it looked like a real iceberg and it had me completely stumped. Some are as common as the appearance of water on a stretch of highway during a hot, dry summer day.Īrmel Castellan, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said we see them on an almost daily basis, cloud cover permitting. Under perfect conditions, with dry air and no pollution, Goldblatt said we’d be able to see objects up to 500 kilometres away.ĭifferent atmospheric refractions are a relatively regular occurrence. “This air was very dry, very clear because there wasn’t any water for the particles to absorb.” “When we’ve got little particles in the atmosphere…that helps scatter away light and make things in the distance appear less clear than they otherwise would be,” Goldblatt said. It can also help us to see things that are maybe further away or maybe would have been across the horizon if there hadn’t been a mirage.”Ī few days of clear, dry weather in early January helped purge the atmosphere of a lot of pollution and other contaminants, making way for light to travel, bend and create a projection. “Rays of light get bent downwards so as the observer, we think they’re higher than they actually are. The phenomenon is called a “superior mirage” and can occur when a hotter air mass comes over the top of a colder one and creates an atmospheric inversion.Ĭolin Goldblatt, an earth and sciences professor at the University of Victoria, said changes in the atmospheric temperatures force light to bend and visually transport objects. Light from the sun reflected off the snow-covered surface of the mountain and was then bent back down by air temperature changes and atmospheric conditions, causing a projection on the water visible at the right angle for Engels. Iceberg reflection panoramic photo print - click to enlarge Sublime, high-contrast picture of. Cheam near Chilliwack, around 180 kilometres away. At heel: Picture of iceberg fine art photography print. What Engels saw, was in fact the distorted and stretched peaks of Mt. (submitted photo/Simone Engels)Ĭommon sense though was pushing her towards a more logical conclusion, with several commenters to her post on a community social media group suggesting it was almost certainly an illusion. ![]() ![]()
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