Author: Claudia Hinz

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Presumed Reflection Subsun in Denmark

Bright and defined reflection subsun. Photo: Anders Falk Jensen

On June 5th, 2015, Anders Falk Jensen made a very interesting observation:

“It was very calm, no or very little wind. At 4.20-4.22 local time I observed a red upper pillar around 30 min’s before sunrise in altocumulus virga.

Later on the train at 5.40-5.48 local time, I observed a peculiar looking pillar in front of the altoculumus clouds, while travelling for 12 km from the town of Jelling through Gadbjerg to Give, Denmark. Sunrise had taken place approx. 60 min’s earlier. The solar elevation during the 8 minute observation increased from 5.4 to 6.5 degrees. The azimuth of the Sun changed from 57.1 to 58.6 degrees.

With these data, I later looked on a map and found the lakes Mossø and Skanderborg plus the Bay of Aarhus, located at distances between 44 and 68 km, suitable for providing the reflected sunlight. I then calculated the cloud height for the reflection to be at 2.5 to 3.5 km, appropriate for altocumulus clouds.

So, I believe that sunrays on this morning were reflected off the calm surface of these lakes, then reached ice crystal virga underneath the altocumulus, creating the phenomenon of a reflection subsun/pillar (which actually is like a subsun turned upside down). The sun was hidden by the clouds all the time, which is actually needed for this kind of observation, as a reflection subsun just about coincides with the sun. After years of observing such phenomena, I immediately knew, that this was something extraordinary. The irregularities seen might originate from minor water surface disturbances and the shape of the lake and surroundings. Also of interest are the vertical “pillar slices”. In some of my photos, weak reflection crepuscular rays are also visible.”

It is of note, that for the observation to hold its place as a halo, there must have been ice crystal clouds in about 3 km altitude in June. The ambient ground level temperature was circa 15 degrees centigrade according to the Danish Weather Office. A radiosonde analysis is not available any more from Denmark, but both Norderney in northern Germany and Stavanger in Norway reported rather warm temperatures at the altocumulus cloulds’ height, so this halo came as a surprise in them.

Further examples of reflection subsun: 1 – 2 – 3

Article about reflection subsun

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Pyramidalhalo in Calgary, Canada

At about 3:16pm on May 4, 2016, with a sun elevation of 49 degrees, Alan Clark observed pyramidal halos from Calgary, Canada, showing a relatively wide 23deg halo, a distinct 9deg halo, and a hint of an 18.5deg component. A daytime maximum temperature of over 26°C on this day in Calgary broke long-term records. The within which The halo display was formed within cirrus cloud that preceded the arrival of a distinctive cold front.

Alan also produced RGB intensity scans from these halo photos, showing the correct colour separation, with red inner colouring for these halos.

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Elliptical halos with small radii observed from Mt. Fichtelberg

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On April 22nd, 2016, I worked on Mt. Fichtelberg (1215 m above sea level) in the German Ore mountains. I noted several interesting phenomena in the sky. An upper air flow from southerly directions had brought in Saharan dust as indicated by a prominent ring of Bishop around the sun, which had already been visible since the day before. On the 22nd, aerosols produced a rather milky sky, with additional thin and high Altocumulus lenticularis clouds due to foehn from the south. These clouds showed a pronounced iridescence when coming close to the sun. This motivated me to investigate the sky in the proximity of the sun in more detail by using dark sunglasses, as it would have been a pity to miss these gorgeous colors.

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The 46° Lowitz arcs and their history

The common halo observer in Central Europe will associate the term “Lowitz arcs” with short segments below the parhelic circle which connect the parhelia and the 22° halo. These so-called “lower Lowitz arcs” were first documented by T. Lowitz in St. Petersburg in 1790. In 1911, A. Wegener pointed out the hypothesis that these arcs might be caused by plate crystals oscillating around their equilibrium position. This statement is recorded in the classical textbook by J.M. Perter and F.M. Exner [1]. In contrast this, R. Greenler postulated that plate crystals might perform full 360° rotations as they fall, referring to a note from R.A.R. Tricker from 1972 [2]. Even today it is still under discussion which kind of crystal motion does occur in nature, since the Lowitz arc simulations for both assumptions coincide in their celestial position and differ only in their intensity distribution [3]. A couple of years after Greenler´s theoretical predictions, the middle and upper Lowitz arcs were observed and photographed in nature, e.g. 1985 in Knau, Thuringia, East Germany [4], 1988 in Dover, Delaware, USA [5] and 1994 in Vaala, Finland [6]. These observations were, however, not inspired by theory, as the arcs were identified only afterwards by comparison with the simulations. In the records of the German “Sektion Halobeobachtungen“ and the later “Arbeitskreis Meteore e.V.“, the upper Lowitz arc was categorized as “unknown halo“ or “abnormal Parry arc“. E. Tränkle presented a simulation of this arc independent from Greenler in 1995 [4].

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November 1, 2014 – Lowitz phenomenon in Miesbach

miesbach_46lowitz

On November 1, 2014, Thomas Klein observed in Miesbach/Bavaria a halo phenomenon with multiple appearances. In the morning hours, only the standard halos 22°-ring, both parhelions, upper tangent arc and parry arc were visible. Right after lunch, the first phenomenon was observed in the centre of Miesbach. Beside the halos above, also rare halos were documented, an almost full parhelic arc, both 120° parhelions, left Liljequist parhelion, supralateral arc and cirumzenithal arc. Not be seen but documented on pictures were also helic arc and wegeners arc.

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Ice Fog Halo Phenomenon in Bremerhaven at the North Sea

An impressive ice fog halo phenomenon occurred in Bremerhaven at Northern Germany’s North Sea coast on 21 January 2016. It lasted from the morning into the early afternoon. To observe such a halo display in Germany is quite rare by itself, but to have it in ice fog directly at the relatively mild coast is certainly exceptional.

Visually I was able to document the following types of halos:
• 22° halo
• Both parhelions (extremely bright at times)
• Upper and Lower tangent arc
• Upper and Lower sun pillar
• Circumzenithal arc
• 46° halo
• Parhelic circle (near the sun and up to 90° to the sun’s right)
• Supralateral arc
• Parry arc
• Tricker’s anthelic arc

Image processing revealed the following halos:
• Heliac arc
• Moilanen arc (without snow gun!)

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Webcam Halos in the last winter season I

More and more ski areas install webcams with a very good image quality. They doesn’t show only the current weather situation, but sometimes also halos. Most interesting are the webcams at the mountain peaks, which also show halo types below the horizon.

Such an interesting halophenomenon recorded the webcam Nassfeld-Hermagor in Carinthia, Austria on 3rd January 2016.

This timelapse shows all halos on that day.

Particularly interesting is the image of 2 ‘o clock pm. In addition to the beautiful combination of Infralateral and Supralateral arcs (right) the 120° subparhelion is also recognizable.

1400

1400usmThe lower part of the Wegener anthelic arc is here faint visible. But even better it is seen at the 3 ‘o clock pm image, furthermore heliac arc and subparhelic circle.

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1500usm

Such a halophenomenon had seen just a few of us in this characteristic.

Authors: Claudia Hinz, Kevin Förster, Andreas Möller

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Neklid Antisolar arcs: Case closed?

neklid_2014_01_301

The antisolar (or subanthelic) arc (AA) was one out of the vast range of halo species occurring during the marvelous Neklid display observed by Claudia and Wolfgang Hinz on Jan 30th, 2014. This kind of halo seems to be exceedingly rare, since it has only been documented during the very best displays, mostly observed in Antarctica. On the other hand, the heliac arc (HA) is a, however not frequent, but well-known guest in Central Europe. Both of them are reflection halos generated by Parry oriented crystals and touch each other at the vertices of their large loops. Fisheye photos towards the zenith from Neklid shows both these halos in perfect symmetry and approximately similar intensity, at least regarding the upper part of the AA.

When trying to simulate the display (solar elevation 17.5°) using HaloPoint2.0, I noticed that the AA was rendered much weaker than the HA, which of course does not match the photographic data. To obtain the Parry effects (Parry arcs, Tape arcs, HA, AA, Hastings arc, partially circumzenith arc, Tricker arc, subhelic arc) I chose a population of “normal” (i.e. symmetrically hexagonal) column crystals with a length/width ratio of c/a = 2 in the appropriate orientation. Since both HA and AA are generated by this very same crystal population, their mutual intensity ratio cannot be influenced by adding plates, singly ordered columns, or randomly oriented crystals. This mysterious issue has also been noted by a Japanese programmer who came across the Neklid pictures.

Inclusions of air or solid particles within the ice crystals are an obvious hypothesis to explain this dissenting AA/HA intensity ratio, since they cannot be accounted for in the standard simulation software. However, a look into literature reveals that there are external and internal ray paths for the HA, but only internal paths for the AA ([1] p. 34-35). That means that inclusions will diminish the AA to a greater extent than the HA. In the extreme case with the interior totally blocked, no AA can arise but a HA is still possible due to external reflection at a sloping crystal face. Hence inclusions cannot explain the bright AA from the Neklid display. Air cavities at the ends of columns which are seen quite often in crystal samples will also inhibit the AA because an internal reflection at a well defined end face is needed for its formation.

Spatial inhomogeneities in the crystal distribution might serve as explanation as long as there is only one single photo or display to deal with, especially when the air flow conditions are as special as they were at Neklid. Maybe there were just “more“ good crystals in the direction of the AA compared to where the HA is formed, either by chance or systematically due to the wind regime. But surprisingly also the observations from the South Pole (Jan 21st, 1986 (Walter Tape); Jan 11th, 1999 (Marko Riikonen), also discussed here) show an AA/HA ratio somewhere in the region of unity as far as one can guess from the printed reproductions ([1] p. 30, [2] p. 58). Parts of the AA appeared even brighter than the HA in Finnish spotlight displays. All this implies a deeper reason for the AA brightening. It seems rather unlikely that in all these cases the inhomogeneities should have worked only in favor of the AA.

Hence the crystals themselves must be responsible for AA brightening. Non-standard crystal shapes and orientations are conjectures that can be tested easily with the available simulation programs. For a first try, one can assign a Parry orientation to plates instead of columns. Changing the c/a shape ratio from 2 to 0.5 while keeping all other parameters fixed results in a much brighter AA.

It is, however, commonly accepted that due to the air drag only columns can acquire a Parry orientation ([1] p. 42). Furthermore, some halos appear in the plate-Parry simulation which have not been observed in reality, e.g. a weak Kern arc complementing the circumzenith arc. At this stage the question may arise why only due to aerodynamics any symmetric hexagonal crystal (may it even be a column) should be able to place a pair of its side faces horizontally to generate Parry halos such as the HA and AA. Cross-like clusters or tabular crystals ([1] p. 42), from whose shapes one will immediately infer that rotations around the long axis are suppressed, seem much more plausible. Surprisingly, Walter Tape’s analysis of collected crystal samples shows that Parry halos are mainly caused by ordinary, symmetric columns. Parry orientations might be a natural mode of falling for small ice crystals, though up to now the aerodynamic reasons remain unclear. Nonetheless I tested if tabular crystals would give a bright AA. This was neither the case for moderate (height/width = 0.5) nor strong aspect ratio (height/width = 0.3). The AA was in both cases even weaker than in the symmetric standard simulation with which the discussion started.

Trigonal plates have been brought into discussion as possible crystal shapes being responsible for the Kern arc (see also [1] p. 102). Out of curiosity I tested how Parry oriented trigonal columns would affect the AA/HA intensity ratio. In contrast to symmetric hexagonal columns two different cases exist here, depending on whether the top or bottom face is oriented horizontally. As seen from the results, a sufficiently bright AA can be simulated using trigonal Parry columns with horizontal bottom faces, but the upper suncave Parry arc and the lower lateral Tape arcs at the horizon disappear. Obviously they have to, since a trigonal crystal in this orientation does not provide the necessary faces for their formation. On the other hand, the simulation predicts unrealistic arcs like the loop within the circumzenith arc. Choosing a trigonal Parry population with top faces horizontal will diminish the loop of the HA and wipe out the upper part of the AA as well as the upper lateral Tape arcs and add an unrealistic halo that sweeps away from the supralateral arc.

Is it possible to generate a realistic simulation of the Neklid picture with such crystals? Clearly this will require to add a second Parry population of symmetric hexagonal prisms. Doing so, a reasonable compromise can be achieved. In this case the hexagonal crystals produce the Parry arc, whereas the trigonal ones are responsible for the AA. Due to the triangular portion being small, the unrealistic halos become insignificant. However, the fact that a further degree of freedom (mixing ratio trigonal/hexagonal) has to be added to the set of initial simulation parameters is somehow dissatisfying.

The question lies at hand if this result might also be obtained by choosing a single Parry population of intermediate shapes between the symmetric hexagonal and trigonal extremes. This idea is further motivated through pictures of sampled crystals that, though being labeled „trigonal“, show in fact non-symmetric hexagonal shapes. The simulation for these shapes does indeed predict an enhanced AA compared to symmetric hexagons, but the lower lateral Tape arcs and the upper suncave Parry arc still appear too weak. This means that an additional set of symmetric hexagonal crystals is needed again to render these halos at the proper intensity.

Moreover, quite prominent unrealistic halos like the loop crossing the circumzenith arc appear in the simulation. If this assumption for the Parry crystal shape was right, this arc should be visible in an unsharp mask processing of the photos. Its absence hints that these crystals did not play a dominant role in the Neklid display. One could argue that the unrealistic halos may depend strongly on the actual crystal shape and might be washed out in a natural mixture of different “trigonalities“. However, the simulation tests indicate that even in this case the unrealistic halos remain rather strong, as long as one still wishes to maintain an AA at sufficient intensity.

As a conclusion, it can be stated that the intensity ratio between the heliac arc and the antisolar arc in the Neklid display as well as in Antarctic and Finnish observations has raised basic questions about the shapes of the responsible crystals. Simulations with symmetric hexagonal Parry columns, i.e. the standard shapes, render the AA to weak compared to the HA. Inclusions in the crystals and spatial inhomogeneities of the crystal distribution can be ruled out as the cause of this deviation. Plates in Parry orientation or a mixture of Parry oriented trigonal columns with horizontal bottom faces and hexagonal columns both result in a more realistic AA/HA intensity ratio. However, they introduce traces of unrealistic halos and are rather uncommon hypotheses: Plate crystals are not supposed to fall like this, and the existence of “true” trigonal crystals is doubtful. Moreover, the trigonal crystals need an accompanying set of standard Parry crystals to generate other halos like the upper suncave Parry arc.

So all in all the mystery of bright antisolar arcs cannot be regarded as solved at this stage. Since this halo species is very rare in free nature, it might be helpful to test perspex crystal models of different shapes in Michael Großmann’s “Halomator“ laboratory setup. Though the refractive index in perspex is higher than in ice, the basic relations between HA and AA stay the same. However the big challenge remains to collect and document crystals during such a display, e.g. with the methods described by Reinhard Nitze.

References

[1]     W. Tape, Atmospheric Halos (American Geophysical Union, 1994)
[2]     W. Tape, J. Moilanen, Atmospheric Halos and the Search for Angle x (American Geophysical Union, 2006)

Addendum

I missed an important piece of information from Finland 2008: The idea of trigonal crystals making Parry halos was already pointed out by Marko Riikonen in an analysis of the Rovaniemi searchlight display. In that case, even one of the halos that I termed “unrealistic“ was observed in reality, thus strongly supporting the trigonal interpretation.

Author: Alexander Haußmann

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January 30, 2014 – Diamond dust phenomen in the Ski area Neklid

IMG_4894

On January 30, 2014 observed my husband Wolfgang and I on the ridge of Ore Mountains between the mountains Fichtelberg (Germany, 1214m) and Klínovec (Czech, 1244m) an incredible Halo phenomenon in top of cold Bohemian fog. This forms very often when atmospheric inversion in the valley of river Eger/ Ohře.

Weather situation: It blew a moderate east wind and drifted the whisp of fog from the valley which were divided into ice crystals on the saddle. Each wispy cloud got other halos. Temperature: -8°C.

We counted 24 different halo types, including Lowitz arcs, 120° parhelia (with blue spot), Supra- and Infralateral arcs, Parry arc, subsun (in front of snow blanket), Wegeners, Trickers, Hastings and diffuse anthelic arcs, upper and lower Tapes arcs (or 46° Parry arcs), heliac arc, subhelic arc, antisolar arc and Moilanen arc. Particularly impressive was the impressive 3D effect.

Here still a video from Oliver Kaufmann

Author: Claudia and Wolfgang Hinz

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Odd radius display in California

Zinkova-title
At around 2 p.m. on February 23, 2016 I was  filming superior mirage of a distant land and superior mirage of a  sea surface. From San Francisco the superior mirages are observed  on warm days, and February 23 was not an exception. The air temperature was higher than 70 degree Fahrenheit. At some point I took my eyes from the horizon and looked up. The sight amazed me. I was looking at bright, circular halos that I have never seen before. Later I found out that the halos I observed were  9 °, 18 °, 20 °, 24 ° and 35 ° radii, and 24 ° upper tangent arc. and that the display has a name: odd radius halos.

Pictures with a different methods of encroachment

From the pictures posted on the NET by other people I found out that a similar display was seen at Ballico, California, which is 50 miles (80 kilometers)  east  of San Francisco. Another observer was located in Sunnyvale 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of San Francisco. It often happens that odd radius halos are observed over vast distances. As a matter of fact on April 14, 1974  the odd radius halos display in England was overdosed at the locations that were 460 kilometers apart.  From Claudia Hinz I’ve learned that odd halos display in Middle Europe are associated with prominent cold fronts that slowly move from north to south, but no cold front arrived in San Francisco on the next day. February 24, 2016 was only slighter cooler than February 23.

halo map-4k

Author: Mila Zinkova, San Francisco