I’ve now watched a few hundred sunsets on this beach and notice something interesting.

[jerry@infosec.exchange]

I’ve now watched a few hundred sunsets on this beach and notice something interesting. Most days are completely clear. Not a cloud in the sky. As the sun starts to set, clouds build in in front of the sun. It makes for amazing sunsets, and I’m guessing has something to do with the surface no longer being heated and pushing air up as fast. But I don’t really know what is doing it. Probably aliens.

[fritzadalis@infosec.exchange]

@jerry
I thought it was HAARP?

[acnelson@infosec.exchange]

@jerry
Reading a book by Sumon Winchester called the Breath of the Gods, the history and future of wind. I think something I read in it might hint at a cause

[schamschula@mastodon.social]

@jerry A Land breeze. As the sun gets lower in the sky near sunset the wind direction reverses from a sea breeze to a land breeze. Weak convection off shore causes the clouds.

[spartan_1986@infosec.exchange]

@jerry The convection answer is not wrong, but living on the west coast where there is no switch of air flow most days, we see the same thing. The tl;dr is that what you are seeing is the water vapor that was already there all along. But when the sun is high the atmosphere is thinnest and all wavelengths of light pass through that water vapor to hit your retina. At sunset though, the light has to travel at an oblique angle to the surface and passes through more atmosphere. The short blue and yellow wavelengths are attenuated by the atmosphere before reaching your eye. This is why sunsets are red. And the peculiar thing about the longer wavelengths of light is that they suck at penetrating water vapor. That’s why we use infrared cameras in satellites to measure water vapor in the atmosphere. The result at sunset is that enough water vapor in the atmosphere will absorb most of the longer wavelengths of light. And the effect is that you can then see the “fog”.