RTMon, 25 Feb 2019 14:07 UTC
© Twitter / Lapin rajavartiosto
A Finnish border guard was, quite literally, stopped in their tracks Sunday after a 'new island' appeared in the middle of the frozen Lake Inari without warning.
Finland's Lapland Border Patrol tweeted images of the strange, apparently geological, phenomenon; an impressive feat considering
temperatures in the region had plummeted as low as -25 degrees Celsius and there was no sight nor sound of any volcanic activity in the area that might explain the sudden appearance of new rock formations, seemingly out of nowhere.
It was merely an optical illusion, however, as one commenter pointed out on Twitter.
Light behaves differently when passing through atmospheric layers, which can lead to mirage-like effects along the horizon, reflecting and refracting distant landscapes in mind-bending ways.
Mirages aren't exclusive to sandy deserts, it would seem.
Comment: According to Wiki it seems mirages in the Arctic may be more common than we think:
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Fata Morgana mirages may have played a role in a number of unrelated "discoveries" of arctic and antarctic land masses which were later shown not to exist. Icebergs frozen into the pack ice, or the uneven surface of the ice itself, may have contributed to the illusion of distant land features.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center
details how these mirages are formed in the Arctic:
Mirages and optical illusions
Mirages and other optical illusions occur in the Arctic because of special atmospheric conditions that bend light. A superior mirage occurs when an image of an object appears above the actual object. Superior mirages sometimes appear in the Arctic because of the weather condition known as a temperature inversion, where cold air lies close to the ground with warmer air above it. Since cold air is denser than warm air, it bends light towards the eyes of someone standing on the ground, changing how a distant object appears.
Although the Finnish coast guard could be forgiven for assuming it was either a mirage or a new island, because nearly every day unusual events are being documented that confirm our planets changing atmosphere, and its geography. But we can't say for sure whether or not this mirage is typical for the region or reflective of these new conditions:
Comment: According to Wiki it seems mirages in the Arctic may be more common than we think: The National Snow and Ice Data Center details how these mirages are formed in the Arctic: Although the Finnish coast guard could be forgiven for assuming it was either a mirage or a new island, because nearly every day unusual events are being documented that confirm our planets changing atmosphere, and its geography. But we can't say for sure whether or not this mirage is typical for the region or reflective of these new conditions: