Extreme weather conditions have produced a rare cloud formation over Australia's Mawson station in Antarctica.
Meteorological officer Renae Baker captured spectacular images of the nacreous clouds, otherwise known as polar stratospheric clouds, late last month.
Reflecting like an airborne mother-of-pearl shell, the cloud colours are produced when fading light at sunset passes through water-ice crystals blown along a strong jet of stratospheric air more than 10 kilometres above the ground.
A weather balloon measured temperatures down to minus 87 degrees celsius when the photographs were taken.
"That's about as cold as the lowest temperatures ever recorded on the surface of the Earth," Ms Baker said.
"Amazingly, the winds at this height were blowing at nearly 230 kilometres per hour."
Australian Antarctic Division atmospheric scientist Andrew Klekociuk said the clouds were seldom seen but could have long-ranging effects.
"These clouds are more than just a curiosity," he said.
"They reveal extreme conditions in the atmosphere and promote chemical changes that lead to destruction of vital stratospheric ozone."
Posted by Oztralian 2006-08-01 02:13||
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#1 WHEN CLOUDS ATTACK, or NANCREOUS - THEY AREN'T
THE NIMBUS YOU THINK THEY ARE, or CLOUDS, WHY DO THEY HATE US SO? A future episode for History Channel's MEGADISASTERS. These clouds wouldn't hate us or harm us so much iff only America would adopt OWG and the right kind/brand of Perfection-centric, anti-sovereign national Socialism These clouds wouldn't threaten or harm anybody iff they + eeeevery other type of cloud had no rights, and no privately-owned guns, to do so. The Failed Left + MSM just know Dubya, Rummy, and Rove are behind the actions of these angry delinquent independence/violence-minded Male Brute abuser molester imperialist clouds, they just know it.
Posted by JosephMendiola 2006-08-01 02:39||
2006-08-01 02:39||
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Posted by anonymous5089 2006-08-01 05:03||
2006-08-01 05:03||
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#3 The pictures are here, and boy, are they cool or what?
Posted by Mike 2006-08-01 07:53||
2006-08-01 07:53||
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#4 There's a UFO in 2 of those pictures.
Now we have proof, what's next ?
Posted by wxjames 2006-08-01 11:33||
2006-08-01 11:33||
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#5 We welcome our Alien Overlords.
Posted by Dreadnought 2006-08-01 11:42||
2006-08-01 11:42||
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#6 Aliens? Ptui...it's all Bush's fault(tm), if only he'd signed Kyoto! And, I imagine that even though it's the coldest temps on record, it's somehow tied to global warming to the gaia freaks!
Posted by BA 2006-08-01 13:31||
2006-08-01 13:31||
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#7 Halliburton's Scary Clouds Division could not be reached for comment.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
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