Science Behind the Beautiful Sunsets' of California

 


Recently, there’s been some of the most beautiful sunsets that California’s skies are witnessing. People are capturing the mesmerizing horizons, splashed with vibrant colours across the entire region. The sight of the sunsets looks so spectacular that it is difficult to take your eyes off them. Just looking at it gives so much peace and it feels like one can watch it for the longest time.

But have you ever wandered that how these sunsets appear and why do they look so breath- taking? Most of us might not know but such beautiful sunsets usually appear during winter and fall season. A scientist, Stephen Corfidi, confirms that more vivid sunsets occur when there is a clean lower atmosphere. He cleared the doubt that most of us might have that pollution contributes to colourful sunsets.

He further explains that there are some particles in the atmosphere that are majorly responsible to produce orange and red low-sun colours but when the lower atmosphere, like California has, combines with the dust, pollution or water droplets, it reduces the brightness of the sunlight.

His exact words while giving the further explanation were “Thus, a brilliant red-orange beam of light created by passage through a long expanse of clear skies west of Los Angeles will be robbed of its brilliance and colour by the large lower atmospheric particles that tend to be found near the ground in urban areas, especially when those particles build up over time.”

Therefore, rather than pollution, it’s clean and clear air that is responsible for bright coloured sunsets and sunrises. Due to the clearer and lower atmosphere in fall and winter months, there are better chances of such vivid and bright coloured sunsets to appear in the sky which has the ability to make people drop their jaws when they come across such wonderful sites of mother nature.

Corfidi also wrote that “Because air circulation is more sluggish during the summer, and because the photochemical reactions which result in the formation of smog and haze proceed most rapidly at that time of the year, late fall and winter are the most favoured times for sunrise and sunset viewing over most of the United States.”

There are some other explanations behind the sunsets. One of them is of AccuWeather website, which says that “Sunlight is composed of all the colours of the rainbow. As the sun dips down over the horizon, sunlight has to pass through a thicker layer of the atmosphere compared to the daytime. This causes the blue light that is seen during the daytime to be scattered away from our eyes, allowing more orange and red light to pass through.”

Seeing the beautiful sunsets, it gets difficult for the people to not capture it and there are some pro photo tips we can try to capture some spectacular sights of these marvelous sunsets. They are-

·  Try to include elements like trees, people, or building to add some kind of context to the picture.

·  Use wide-angle lens and capture the clouds.

·  Use a panoramic mode if you are clicking the picture with a mobile phone.

·  Never look directly at the sun.

·  Be creative and use sunsets to various advantages for taking out some nice shots.

Wish you many more incredible sunsets to ease your mood.

 

Written By - Somya Jain

 Edited By - Tushna Choksey

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