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Atmospheric refraction becomes more severe when temperature gradients are strong, and refraction is not uniform when the atmosphere is heterogeneous, as when turbulence occurs in the air. This causes suboptimal seeing conditions, such as the twinkling of stars and various deformations of the Sun's apparent shape soon before sunset or after sunrise.
The Novaya Zemlya effect is a polar mirage caused by high refraction of sunlight between atmospheric thermoclines. The Novaya Zemlya effect will give the impression that the sun is rising earlier or setting later than it actually should (astronomically speaking). [42]
Looming of the Canadian coast as seen from Rochester, New York, on April 16, 1871. Looming is the most noticeable and most often observed of these refraction phenomena. It is an abnormally large refraction of the object that increases the apparent elevation of the distant objects and sometimes allows an observer to see objects that are located below the horizon under normal conditions.
Due to a normal atmospheric refraction, sunrise occurs shortly before the Sun crosses above the horizon. Light from the Sun is bent, or refracted, as it enters Earth's atmosphere. This effect causes the apparent sunrise to be earlier than the actual sunrise. Similarly, apparent sunset occurs slightly later than actual sunset.
Atmospheric ducting is a mode of propagation of electromagnetic radiation, usually in the lower layers of Earth’s atmosphere, where the waves are bent by atmospheric refraction. [2] In over-the-horizon radar , ducting causes part of the radiated and target-reflection energy of a radar system to be guided over distances far greater than the ...
In simple terms, twinkling of stars is caused by the passing of light through different layers of a turbulent atmosphere. Most scintillation effects are caused by anomalous atmospheric refraction caused by small-scale fluctuations in air density usually related to temperature gradients.
The sun dog is a member of the family of halos caused by the refraction of sunlight by ice crystals in the atmosphere. Sun dogs typically appear as a pair of subtly colored patches of light, around 22° to the left and right of the Sun, and at the same altitude above the horizon as the Sun. They can be seen anywhere in the world during any ...
However, the real atmosphere can vary greatly from the norm. Anomalous propagation refers to false radar echoes usually observed when calm, stable atmospheric conditions, often associated with super refraction in a temperature inversion, direct the radar beam toward the ground. The processing program will then wrongly place the return echoes at ...