A not so elusive Hawaiian Sunset Green Flash, in 4K [Jan 2022]

Hector Barbossa: “Ever gazed upon the green flash, Master Gibbs?”

Joshamee Gibbs: “I reckon I seen my fair share. Happens on rare occasion. The last glimpse of sunset, a green flash shoots up into the sky. Some go their whole lives without ever seeing it. Some claim to have seen it who ain’t. And some say-”

Pintel: “It signals when a soul comes back to this world from the dead!”

– Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

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What is a green flash?
The green flash is an optical phenomenon that occurs during a sunset or a sunrise if conditions are favourable. The green flash happens at the moment when the Sun is almost entirely below the horizon, with just the upper rim barely visible, i.e. at the near end of a sunset or the start of a sunrise. A momentary flash of green colour might be seen close to this barely visible rim, called the 'green flash'.

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How to observe a green flash?
You need:
1. A clear day with no haze or cloud, especially along the horizon.
2. A clear view of a distant horizon, like over the ocean from a beach.
Green flashes are easier to spot during a sunset rather than a sunrise.

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What causes green flashes to occur?
The green flash is the result of looking at the sun through a greater and greater thickness of atmosphere as you look lower and lower in the sky. Water vapor in the atmosphere absorbs the yellow and orange colors in white sunlight, and air molecules scatter the violet light. That leaves the red and blue-green light to travel directly toward you. Near the horizon, the sun’s light is highly bent or refracted. It’s as though there are two suns – a red one and a blue-green one – partially covering each other. The red one is always closest to the horizon, so when it sets or before it rises, you see only the blue-green disk – the green flash.

There are 4 types of green flashes:
1. inferior mirage
2. mock mirage
3. subduct flash
4. green ray

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Blue flash!
Very rarely, refraction of sunlight through the atmosphere may be sufficient to produce a blue flash. Sometimes the blue flash stacks on top of the green flash. The effect is best seen in photographs rather than with the eye, which is not very sensitive to blue light. The blue flash is so rare because blue light is generally scattered by the atmosphere before it reaches the viewer.

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