Atmospheric Optical Phenomena Research Paper Afterglow

Occurrence of earthquake lights
Proposed mechanisms explaining occurrence of earthquake lights include piezoelectricity, solo luminescence, and heat due to friction, exoelectron emissions and electro kinetics. Piezoelectric activity is caused by stress within the fault zone, ionization from radon, triboluminesccence from rocks, which rub against each other and the release of methane gas.
Methane gas explains the occurrence of light both before and even during an earthquake. Portions of trapped gas would be expected to seep from the ground and possibly ignite due to friction in the moving rock. However, big portions of methane gas are not distributed widely enough in all the regions that earthquake lights are reported to occur. Radon ionization takes a vital and crucial role in pre-seismic and paranormal activities too but it is not viewed as a model.
This is because there are no sufficient random clouds produced, to provide enough ionization for visible glows. Earthquake lights may be considered as physical phenomenon or of a spiritual nature according to the varied descriptions of light occurrence. Taking an example of a country like Japan, where the lights are experienced frequently; there are entities, which associate the lights occurrence to ghosts. (Ahrens&Donald, 2009).
Auroral lights
These are natural displays of light which appear in the skies especially at high attitudes. They are mainly caused by collisions of energetically ionized molecules, with atoms in the higher altitudes of the atmosphere. They have a curtain like shape at their lower edges. The lights occur in the ring-shaped regions around the southern and northern poles. Alaska provides a nice view for these lights especially in the Fairbanks.
Occurrence- Aurora borealis and australis
The aurora borealis are lights occurring in the northern latitudes and are therefore named after the goddess of dawn, while the australis are lights seen in the southern pole. Both of lights are caused by very swift moving electrons within atoms in the earth’s upper atmospheres, especially oxygen and nitrogen. As this occurs, the atoms are ionized and as they return to normality, they produce excess energy which is in the form of visible electrons. The fast moving electrons originate from the sun.
Charged particles are constantly striking the earth and are therefore “deflected by the earth’s magnetic field” (Ahrens & Donald, 2009). They move along the field lines, and some of them ending up interacting with the magnetic field lines. As they cut across the field, they produce a current which allows production of a large amount of power.
This current makes a fairly unstable condition in the magnetosphere. With time, some of this current is discharged causing electrons in the magnetosphere move down towards the poles and through the earth’s upper atmosphere. As it reaches the atmosphere, it bombards basically with oxygen and nitrogen. While this occurs, the atoms jump to high energy orbitals.
This state is fairly unstable for these atoms and this makes them return faster to their normal orbitals. Consequently, they must release the excess energy they had stored up from this collision, inform of a photon. As a good number of these atoms go from the higher orbital energetic state to the lower orbital energetic state, they produce enough light which is viewable even to the naked eye by people standing in strategic locations on the earth.
Conclusion
The meteorological studies affect all beings on the planet. The various phenomena are significant in prediction of weather patterns and storms; this is in turn useful in determining issues and or factors like the ozone layer deterioration and our depleting water supply. They orient us on how to work in harmony with the surrounding and make us informed on the mechanisms behind occurrence of natural phenomena.