Mysterious Night-Shining Clouds Getting Brighter

Space.com ^ | 27 January 2011 Time: 06:31 PM ET | OurAmazingPlanet

[The Comedian]

After the sun sets on a summer evening and the sky fades to black, you may be lucky enough to see thin, wavy clouds illuminating the night, such as these seen over Billund, Denmark, on July 15, 2010.

Clouds bright enough to see at night are not as hard to find as they once were.

These so-called night-shining clouds are still rare — rare enough that Matthew DeLand, who has been studying them for 11 years, has seen them only once. But his odds are increasing. [Related: In Images: Reading the Clouds.]

These mysterious clouds form between 50 and 53 miles (80 and 85 kilometers) up in the atmosphere, altitudes so high that they reflect light long after the sun has dropped below the horizon.

DeLand, an atmospheric scientist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., has found that night-shining clouds — technically known as polar mesospheric or noctilucent clouds — are forming more frequently and becoming brighter. He has been observing the clouds in data from instruments that have been flown on satellites since 1978.

For reasons not fully understood, the clouds' brightness wiggles up and down in step with solar activity, with fewer clouds forming when the sun is most active. The biggest variability is in the far north.

[The Comedian]

This is a poorly and partially-understood phenomenon, but it seems to indicate cooling of the upper atmosphere.

Today is a good day to die.
I didn't say for whom.

[The Comedian]

Signs-in-the-heavens? ping.

"Space Energy/Solar Weirdness" ping.

Ping list dealing with odd space phenomena and solar events.

FReepmail me if you want on or off

The Comedian's "Space Energy/Solar Weirdness" ping list...

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[Texas Eagle]

... it seems to indicate cooling of the upper atmosphere.

Oh, crap. We've removed too much CO2 from the atmosphere.

[silverleaf]

not good news for species that require cycles of dark and light to thrive?

[vpintheak]

I have seen them quite often. Cooling you say? Hmmm...

[B4Ranch]

Heat rises, cold drops, we are in for another ICE AGE!

[Sacajaweau]

What’s the problem?? It happens...Geez...He gets a write up for this??

[BenLurkin]

[CodeToad]

264,000 to 279,000 feet up? I didn’t know there were any ice particles that high.

[DManA]

I have a physicist friend who says these clouds are very rare in the winter and presage significant global cooling.

[RinaseaofDs]

Could be an by-product of more weather modification by the Russians and Chinese, who are pretty up-front about doing that sort of thing.

As for the US doing that sort of thing? We deny we do it. I personally think there is something to chemtrails, since what I’ve observed happening behind some of these aircraft with these unbelievable ‘contrails’ are the very same thing we were trained to spot in military chemical warfare training classes. (Pearls on a string type clouds spreading in the atmosphere as a warning, and using local wind/wx to calculate how much time you have to prepare countermeasures and protection)

Could be residue from that sort of activity. One more thing we can only guess at.

[Hoffer Rand]

Oh, crap. We've removed too much CO2 from the atmosphere.

It's all those damn trees. I knew Earth Day was going to come back and bite us in the butt.

[BenLurkin]

[Slicksadick]

Plz add me to this list.

[Flag_This]

"These so-called night-shining clouds are still rare — rare enough that Matthew DeLand, who has been studying them for 11 years, has seen them only once."

That's some studying.

[Daffynition]

Clouds RULE!

[Daffynition]

Keep looking up!

[Flag_This]

"Keep looking up!"

The joke is probably on us - I bet he has a 2.4 million dollar federal research grant because he has somehow tied their appearance to global warming.

[JRios1968]

These so-called night-shining clouds are still rare — rare enough that Matthew DeLand, who has been studying them for 11 years, has seen them only once.

I'll go ahead and blame Sarah Palin and the Tea Party for this.

[Vendome]

BS.

It’s Globull Warming. /s