Why does outside look orange

The science is the same, with short-wavelength blue and violet light scattered by molecules in the atmosphere while longer-wavelength red, orange, and pink light passing through and hitting the clouds. When the Sun is low in the sky, the rays must travel through more air, and the effect of all the blue being scattered away starts to become apparent. It looks yellowish. If the Sun is also shining on clouds or snow, they will also appear yellowish at this time.

The yellow sky in this question is likely mostly owing to Mie scattering. Mie scattering is caused by pollen, dust, smoke, water droplets the most likely culprit in this case , and other particles in the lower portion of the atmosphere. This is why sunsets are often yellow, orange, and red. The National Weather Service says orange skies are common following storms that move in just as the sun is setting.

As the hurricane whirled past Africa, she collected dust particles from the Sahara Desert, and as she continued up past Western Europe, Ophelia accumulated smoke from the wildfires of Northern Iberia.

The bundle of dust and smoke particles were lifted high into the atmosphere where they split out the light spectrum. Blue light, which usually paints the sky, was scattered enabling more yellow and orange light to break through.

The sky was a dark orange! What was going on and where could I go for answers? Earth observation satellites! These are good for this sort of event. From my experience using remote sensing instruments to study the atmosphere I know the value of this resource.

This air was coming from the south west — from the dusty Sahara and from Portugal and Spain where there were reports of wildfires. Their indirect effect comes about by playing the part of condensation nuclei that cause clouds to form Davies et al. An increase in condensation nuclei means an increase in cloud formation with a reduction in water droplet size. This leads to an increase in cloud reflectance of sunlight — a cooling effect.

The increase in reflectance happens because the total surface area of the water is greater when spread over more droplets Twomey, The direct effect is that sunlight is absorbed and scattered by these aerosols Davies and North, When aerosols absorb sunlight, this increases the atmospheric temperature — a warming effect. Some of the scattered sunlight is reflected back into space and this will also have a cooling effect. The red sky is caused by the way that light is scattered. Blue light has a shorter wavelength than red light and is scattered more easily by the molecules in the air this is why a clear sky appears blue.

Red light has a longer wavelength than blue light and is not scattered as easily. The orange sky was caused by the contribution the aerosols were making to the way the light was being scattered. Here at University of Reading I am working on two projects that study the effect of aerosols.