Spectacular Pink

Yesterday evening, Red Baron observed a rare meteorological phenomenon.

While I expected a red-orange sunset, the sky was pink.

Look at the photo of a "classical" sunset by a friend of mine, the gifted Photographer Margit Anhut. An orange glow over the Vosges Mountains as seen from Schauinsland, the fourth-highest mountain in the Black Forest. Note the fog in the valleys.

As the sun sets, its light travels through a thicker atmospheric layer than when it shines from the zenith.  As a physicist, I have learned that, by Raleigh scattering, short-wavelength blue and violet light is scattered out of view. Therefore, the less scattered, longer red and orange wavelengths dominate the sky.

Now, high-altitude thin and wispy cirrus clouds enter the game. These clouds are ideal for reflecting the last rays of red and orange sunlight, particularly when the sun is below the horizon. Thus, the red light is diluted and mixes with the residual blue, making the sky appear pink.

Was it more than an incident that the very evening Red Baron listened at Freiburg’s Konzerthaus to the London Symphony Orchestra playing Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, the soloist Arabella Steinbacher wore a spectacular pink dress?

However, this is nothing compared to the dress Arabella wears on her website.

**