This satellite image is taken by the AVHRR (Advance Very High Resolution Radiometer) that sits on the polar orbiting satellite NOAA19. This satellite circles around the world in about 100 minutes at an altitude of approximately 800km. This is an image in the visual channel, this means that the radiometer captures the short wave radiation that is reflected by the Earth’s surface, clouds, etc. It is from 1800utc, 6 September 2010.

This image gives you an overview of the Western Arctic, from the Chukchi Sea, via the Beaufort Sea towards Ellesmere Island. The white dot at the top is the North Pole. Point Barrow is indicated with the red arrow. If you have red the overview of the climate conditions at Point Barrow (previous post) than you know that it is very exceptional to have clear skies in summer with an open sea. However this image shows the PB arrow clear of clouds, with fog or Stratus cloud a little bit further at Sea.

Very typical for high pressure conditions is the low cloud cover. The strong high over the Beaufort Sea is generating a lot of Stratus, or low cloud. The vertical movement in a high pressure system is downward: when air moves downward it is getting warmer and drier. Until it hits the inversion layer. In this layer, that extends from the surface upto a variable height of 500-800meter, all moisture is captured which results in fog/low clouds.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 6th, 2010 at 10:07 pm and is filed under North East West passage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.