Amazing glowing clouds may portend climate change

Mysterious glowing clouds, which are almost exclusively observed in Earth’s polar regions are now appearing Over the past several days inthe night skies over United States and Europe. Scientists call this phenomena as noctilucent clouds.

Noctilucent clouds are formed by ice literally at the boundary where the earth’s atmosphere meets space 50 miles up. They shine because they are so high that they remain lit by the sun even after our star is below the horizon.

Photographers and other sky watchers in Omaha, Paris, Seattle, and other locations have run outside to capture images of noctilucent clouds which they commonly refer to as night shining.

Noctilucent clouds were first observed in 1885 by an amateur astronomer. No observations of anything resembling noctilucent clouds before that time has ever been found. There is no lack of observations of other phenomena in the sky, so atmospheric scientists are fairly sure that the phenomenon is recent, although they are not sure why.

What is the implication of the appearance of noctilucent clouds over non polar regions?

The clouds might look awesome and lovely to look at, but it could be an omen of global changes caused by global warming. Noctilucent clouds are a fundamentally new phenomenon in the temperate mid-latitude sky, and it’s not clear why they’ve migrated down from the poles. Or why, over the last 25 years, more of them are appearing in the polar regions, too, and shining more brightly.

“That’s a real concern and question,” said James Russell, an atmospheric scientist at Hampton University and the principal investigator of an ongoing NASA satellite mission to study the clouds. “Why are they getting more numerous? Why are they getting brighter? Why are they appearing at lower latitudes?”

Rusell said that the prevailing and theory and most plausible explanation of notilucent clouds is carbon dioxide build up at 50 miles above the surface which cause the temperature to decrease. However, he also cautioned that temeperature observatioins remain inconclusive.

“It’s not hard to see how a warming Earth could change those dynamics: as the globe heats up, the top of the atmosphere should get colder”, Rusell added.

Other hypotheses abound to explain the observed changes in the clouds:

An increase in atmospheric methane oxidizes into carbon dioxide and water vapor which could provide more water for ice in the stratosphere.
An increase in the amount of cosmic or terrestrial dust in the stratosphere could also increase the number of brightly shining clouds.
vertical atmospheric wave- a periodic disturbance in the fields of atmospheric variables (like surface pressure or geopotential height, temperature, or wind velocity) which may either propagate (traveling wave) or not (stationary wave).