On the afternoon of April 7, some netizens in Haicheng, Liaoning Province, noticed that although the sun was still dazzling in the blue sky, the sun looked a little different from usual - a faint white halo was linking the sun together, forming a rather strange scene, like a huge "diamond ring" in the sky, the halo was the ring, and the sun was the diamond on the ring.
While this miracle has aroused the admiration of a large number of netizens, many netizens have to ask: What is this strange phenomenon? Is it a sign of a cold snap? Could it be a precursor to an earthquake? This is actually a fairly typical "magic sun ring" phenomenon. The solar ring is a special atmospheric optical phenomenon, which belongs to a kind of ice halo, which is refracted by high cloud ice crystals such as cirrus and cirrus, and is simply said to be "relative" with the more familiar solar halo.
The solar ring observed in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, in April 2019
The heliopause ring is formed by the reflection of hexagonal ice crystals that are almost perpendicular to sunlight. Reflections can be external (i.e., not passing through ice crystals) that form a solar ring near the Sun, or internally (one or more reflections within the crystal) that form a solar ring that is partly away from the Sun. Since multiple reflections can make the refraction asymmetrical, the parts far from the sun will separate and produce some color. When the sun's altitude angle is low, it is like a flowing white exercise, and when it is high, it is like a diamond ring hanging high in the sky, inlaid with a shining white sun, and the "white rainbow through the sun" recorded by many ancients is likely to be a phenomenon of the magic sun ring.
The heliosphere and the phenomenon of the sun illusion observed at the Toyama City Observatory in Japan in May 2008
For Liaoning, this is also a fairly classic phenomenon of the solar ring, and there are several more obvious white spots on the other side of the ring, which is actually a 120-degree solar illusion, which is the product of the refraction of sunlight by high-altitude ice crystals on April 7.
Judging from the satellite cloud map of the day, most of the sky over the northeast is mainly sunny, which is actually after the influence of the last wave of northeast cold vortex, under the residual influence of the northeast cold vortex, the air temperature in some parts of the northeast is low, and there are ice crystals, which can eventually refract sunlight to form a spectacular illusion.
Of course, the residual effects of the northeast cold vortex also mean that the westerly wind belt is actually very unstable in the near future, and the next wave of westerly wind belt fluctuations is already gathering momentum – the supercomputer's forecast points out that from April 10, the westerly wind trough will once again induce cold air to penetrate into the mainland. The current forecast of the Central Meteorological Observatory believes that from the 10th to the 14th, due to the strong cold air, there will be a large-scale obvious cooling and precipitation process in Xinjiang and most of the central and eastern regions. In the eastern part of the northwest region, north China, northeast China, Huanghuai, Jianghuai, Jiangnan and other places, the temperature dropped by 6 to 8 degrees, and the local temperature dropped by more than 12 degrees. Therefore, after the recent warming wave, everyone should also beware of the sudden attack of cold air!