A Mirage!!!

This will be a short one, but I thought that this mirage was so interesting that it deserved its own dedicated post. A couple of days ago while waiting for the day's field crew to get ready so we could load them on a shuttle to the airfield, I was standing outside the science building on the loading dock looking across McMurdo Sound. I saw that the base of the mountains on the other side appeared to have vertical stripes. On closer examination, I saw that the base actually appeared to be reflected. The reflection was not, however, in the water, as you could see objects closer than the mountains, but further than the water, which were not reflected. So, I did what I always do - I started asking people questions. (I do so love to have people answer my questions!) It turns out that this is an unusual type of mirage called "Fata Morgana." Although some folks I talked to seemed to think that this type of mirage is exclusive to Antarctica, it is not. The name is actually Italian for "the fairy Morgana" and was once believed to be a form of witchcraft.

Fata Morgana is a superior mirage formed by an inversion of air near the horizon, in which warm air overlies cold air (typically, warm air is closest to the ground). Light is bent from its normal travel path by these thermal layers, and your eye perceives them as having originated from a different location. Here is the best simple diagram I've found. The solid lines are the paths the light has actually traveled, while the dashed lines are the paths that your eye/brain perceives.

Here are some close-ups of the mirrored mountain-base. You can also see distortion, but not inversion of some of the landscape and planes in the the foreground. How fun to find science and beauty together, especially when you're standing around waiting and not expecting anything special!