Fog rolls over the hills of Marin County in this long-exposure photograph by Lorenzo Montezemolo. One of the most beautiful aspects of fluid dynamics is the way the same patterns and forms show up across situations. The slow flow of fog over hills in moonlight can echo the blurring speed of rivers pouring over a rocky streambed. Despite the differences in speed, lengthscale, and fluid, the physics remain the same. (Photo credit: L. Montezemolo; via Colossal)
Tag: fog
Foggy Flows
The transparency of air makes it easy to overlook its fluid nature. In this National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year entry, photographer Thierry Bornier captures the early morning view from China’s Yellow Mountain. Foggy clouds flow around and over nearby mountain peaks, like water flowing over rocks in a stream. To see other, similar effects, check out these timelapse videos of fog in the Grand Canyon and clouds around San Francisco. (Image credit: T. Bornier; via Colossal)
Foggy Canyon
Timelapse photography reveals the tide-like motions of fog that filled the Grand Canyon last week. This unusual meteorological condition was created by a temperature inversion. Usually air near the ground is warmest and the atmosphere cools as the altitude increases. But occasionally a mass of warm air will trap a layer of cooler air beneath it. In the case of the Grand Canyon, cool foggy air was capped by a warmer air mass, resulting in a sea of fog. Depending on the conditions, temperature inversions can create other distinctive weather patterns like cloud streets or even supercell thunderstorms. (Video credit: Vox; via Flow Visualization)
“Adrift”
Sometimes the time scales of a flow can mask its similarities to other flows. Simon Christen’s “Adrift,” a video of timelapsed fog in the San Francisco Bay area, shows just how these low clouds undulate and flow over the land the way a stream of water flows over and around stones. From the flow of gases in a stellar nursery down to the channels of a lab-on-a-chip, the same physics governs fluids everywhere, and there are always similarities to be found and exploited in our efforts to understand and explain fluid dynamics. (Video credit: S. Christen; via io9)
