IMAGE OF THE MONTH

MARCH 2016

Ptarmigan overlooking the cloud inversion

On this day I set off in the cloud but soon rose above it to clear blue skies and sunshine, what a relief. The ptarmigan were staying above the cloud to enjoy the warmth of the sunshine. As they are paired off they were making it very difficult to get reasonably close but I was happy with this image as I wanted to capture it overlooking the inversion as it makes for a more interesting image.

A capping inversion occurs when there is a boundary layer with a normal temperature profile (warm air rising into cooler air) and the layer above that is an inversion layer (cooler air below warm air). Cloud formation from the lower layer is “capped” by the inversion layer.