Color Analysis

Ever wonder what different colours you see in the sky mean? Well now you know!

Intense red sunsets are often visible when forest fires are burning nearby, or when volcanic eruptions happen. The most heavily polluted cities in the world also tend to have more orange and red sunsets, resulting from an abundance of human-made aerosols. Though the result can be spectacular to observe, it is also an indication of increased air pollution.

As with red sunsets, the unusual Moon coloration might be pleasing to the eye, but it is a sign of poor air quality.The beautiful colours of the sunset tend to be from light scattering in the atmosphere from the sun. When more particles are apparent in the air, more light is scattered, and colours enhance.

The Red or Orange or Yellow Colour

If you ever feel the atmosphere looks strangely red or orange or yellow, this would not be a pure coincidence. As a matter of fact, when particles, such as smoke or dust, fill the atmosphere, this will help longer wavelength, such as the red wavelength, to scatter more effectively, and let the apparent color of the atmosphere tend more towards red or orange or yellow . So, next time you notice a very “red” atmosphere at sunset, remember that this atmosphere is rich in smoke or dust, and could possibly be carrying, through winds, smoke that has resulted from a wildfire for instance

The Brown Colour

The “brown” color of the atmosphere is one of the many results of the overexploitation of our Earth. This brown color is apparent when atmospheric brown clouds, brown clouds that we can easily notice in the atmosphere, are present in the atmosphere. Associated with human-generated air pollution, these atmospheric brown clouds are caused by emissions associated with the combustion of fossil fuels and biomass.

When the light emitted by the sun reaches an atmosphere that is rich in black carbon, fly ash, soil dust particles, and nitrogen dioxide due to the combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, it is absorbed by these molecules and result in the brown colour of the clouds, producing a phenomenon called “dimming”.

The Blue Color

Gases and particles in Earth's atmosphere scatter sunlight in all directions. Blue light is scattered more than other colours because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.

The Green Colour

Thunderstorms, which can be the home of tornadoes, usually occur around sunset time, when the sun is starting to set down the horizon and the atmosphere’s colour starts turning more to red. In addition, whenever a thundercloud, a cumulus cloud with a towering top and charged with electricity, is formed, we notice that the light under it is primarily blue, due to the scattering by water droplets within the cloud. When blue objects are illuminated with red light, they appear green.

A green cloud will only appear if the cloud is very deep, a sign that appears only in thunderstorm clouds, so that might be a warning that a large hail or tornado might be present. However, although green clouds usually occur before a tornado, they cannot guarantee that a tornado is on its way.

The Pink Color