recent advances in research on noctilucent clouds

Fogle, Benson

doi:10.1175/1520-0477-47.10.781

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…The persistence and growth of the rocket trail only near the mesopause and at the level of minimum temperature indicate that the ANLC thus produced is made up of water; the extent of the cloud and its lifetime suggest that in view of the small amount of H:O released by the rocket the atmospheric water content is relatively high. These observations confirm that creating ANLC at different latitudes is quite possible [Meinel et al, 1963] and that the negative results of previous experiments to create AN LC over Alaska [Fogle, 1966] were probably due to the water being released at too low an altitude.…”

Section: Cloud Of March 18 1972mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mid-latitude artificial noctilucent clouds initiated by high-altitude rockets

Bénech¹,

Dessens²

1974

J. Geophys. Res.

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On two occasions, in February 1971 and March 1972, the exhausts produced by a rocket reentering into the atmosphere have initiated the formation of an artificial noctilucent cloud in France at an altitude of around 80 km. As the exhausts did not produce a persistent trail on the upper part of the rocket trajectory during burning, it is assumed that the cloud was of water, although an initial amount of only 260 g of water was released.

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Section: Cloud Of March 18 1972mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mid-latitude artificial noctilucent clouds initiated by high-altitude rockets

Bénech¹,

Dessens²

1974

J. Geophys. Res.

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“…Because they are very tenuous clouds, with vertical optical depths of typically < 10 −4 (Debrestian et al, 1997), they can only be seen during twilight when the Sun is between 6 • and 16 • below the horizon, and the clouds are still sunlit, while the observer and the atmosphere below the clouds are in darkness (Avaste et al, 1980;Thomas, 1991). NLCs appear "silvery", "pearly" and generally have a blue tint (Currie, 1962;Paton, 1964;Fogle, 1966). Figure 1 shows a typical example of an NLC with a blueish colour.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the colour of noctilucent clouds

Lange

Baumgarten

Rozanov

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Abstract. The high-latitude phenomenon of noctilucent clouds (NLCs) is characterised by a silvery-blue or pale blue colour. In this study, we employ the radiative transfer model SCIATRAN to simulate spectra of solar radiation scattered by NLCs for a ground-based observer and assuming spherical NLC particles. To determine the resulting colours of NLCs in an objective way, the CIE (International Commission on Illumination) colour matching functions and chromaticity values are used. Different processes and parameters potentially affecting the colour of NLCs are investigated, i.e., the size of the NLC particles, the abundance of middle atmospheric O3 and the importance of multiply scattered solar radiation. We afﬁrm previous research indicating that solar radiation absorption in the O3 Chappuis bands can have a signiﬁcant effect on the colour of the NLCs. A new result of this study is that for sufﬁciently large NLC optical depths and for speciﬁc viewing geometries, O3 plays only a minor role for the blueish colour of NLCs. The simulations also show that the size of the NLC particles affects the colour of the clouds. Cloud particles of unrealistically large sizes can lead to a reddish colour. Furthermore, the simulations show that the contribution of multiple scattering to the total scattering is only of minor importance, providing additional justiﬁcation for the earlier studies on this topic, which were all based on the single scattering approximation.

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“…Because they are very tenuous clouds, with vertical optical depths of typically < 10 −4 (Debrestian et al, 1997), they can only be seen during twilight when the Sun is between 6 and 16 • below the horizon (and the clouds are still sunlit) while the observer and the atmosphere below the clouds are in darkness (Avaste et al, 1980;Thomas, 1991). NLCs appear "silvery", "pearly" and generally have a blue tint (Currie, 1962;Paton, 1964;Fogle, 1966). Figure 1 shows a typical example of an NLC with a blueish colour.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the colour of noctilucent clouds

et al. 2022

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Abstract. The high-latitude phenomenon of noctilucent clouds (NLCs) is characterised by a silvery-blue or pale blue colour. In this study, we employ the radiative transfer model SCIATRAN to simulate spectra of solar radiation scattered by NLCs for a ground-based observer and assuming spherical NLC particles. To determine the resulting colours of NLCs in an objective way, the CIE (International Commission on Illumination) colour-matching functions and chromaticity values are used. Different processes and parameters potentially affecting the colour of NLCs are investigated, i.e. the size of the NLC particles, the abundance of middle atmospheric O3 and the importance of multiply scattered solar radiation. We affirm previous research indicating that solar radiation absorption in the O3 Chappuis bands can have a significant effect on the colour of the NLCs. A new result of this study is that for sufficiently large NLC optical depths and for specific viewing geometries, O3 plays only a minor role for the blueish colour of NLCs. The simulations also show that the size of the NLC particles affects the colour of the clouds. Cloud particles of unrealistically large sizes can lead to a reddish colour. Furthermore, the simulations show that the contribution of multiple scattering to the total scattering is only of minor importance, providing additional justification for the earlier studies on this topic, which were all based on the single-scattering approximation.

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recent advances in research on noctilucent clouds

Cited by 6 publications

References 5 publications

Mid-latitude artificial noctilucent clouds initiated by high-altitude rockets

Mid-latitude artificial noctilucent clouds initiated by high-altitude rockets

On the colour of noctilucent clouds

On the colour of noctilucent clouds

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