What Is That Noise?

We are in the middle of February and the snowcover in our Wisconsin area is unusually low. Ice-fishermen are kept aware of unsafe ice conditions on their favorite fishing lakes.

 Weather forecasters are not mentioning snow and it appears that winter is on the wane. It’s been an unusual winter. Years ago, snow drifts along country roads reached the roadside telephone wires at this time of the year. Winter nights were cold enough that outdoors listeners would hear the sound of trees cracking in the night. Things seem to be changing. Cold, clear wintery nights were full of bright stars and an occasional display of Northern Lights, a sight currently very rare in our area.

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Scandinavian winter-nights are nationally known for their almost-routine displays of brilliant color as tourist cameras record waves of Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights as they flash across the sky. It is often said that the northern parts of Norway is the best places in the world to see the northern lights. The lights can be just as visible from destinations outside of Norway, but few countries can rival the vast selection of tours, cruises, restaurants and hotels which all play an important part in this arctic experience. This is an important part of winter activities in long, cold and dark winter nights.

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'Aurora Borealis', means 'dawn of the north'.  In Roman myths, Aurora was the goddess of the dawn.  Many cultural groups have legends about the lights. In medieval times, these strange light-displays were seen as warnings of war or famine.

The Menominee Indians of Wisconsin believed that the lights indicated the location of giants who were the spirits of great hunters and fishermen. The Inuit of Alaska believed that the lights were the spirits of the animals they hunted Other aboriginal peoples believed that the lights were the spirits of their people.

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Iceland turned off the street lights in its capital city, one November night between 10pm until midnight  to allow people to view a spectacular Northern Lights display.

Reykjavik residents were asked to darken their homes  and drivers were informed to take extreme care while on the roads.

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One visitor strolling on a quiet, cold and clear Scandinavian winter night was hearing strange crackling sounds. Believing it was from powerlines, he found the sound continued as he walked away. Looking up into the dark skies, he noticed the flashing waves of color and realized that the crackling sounds were coming in the waves of the northern lights.Witnesses say the sounds are comparable to radio static, like a faint crackling,  or hissing heard for a few minutes during a strong display. These weird sounds were long considered folklore, but scientists have now found otherwise. Finnish scientists have not only shown that they really happen and now know why..

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Charged particles are constantly streaming from the sun in the solar wind, and auroras occur when these particles interact with Earth's magnetic field. The sounds can be created when a layer of warm air  interacts with a layer of cold air near the Earth’s surface. Electrical charges then build up in the warm layer of air while opposite charges build in the cold layer. These visible displays appear as  disturbances resulting in  electrical discharges creating sounds we normally hear in thunderstorms.

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Currently, in “The North Land”, January temperatures in Norway average between 21 ° and 37 °F and areas north of the Arctic Circle rarely see the sun rise, due to the natural phenomenon of the polar night. January and February temperatures in this area can drop to 5 °F. The lowest winter temperatures in Iceland are usually somewhere between -13 and-22 °F, although the lowest temperature ever recorded on Iceland was -39 °F

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Scientists estimate that ,should the current rate of climate change continue, Greenland's ice sheet, which contains

Norway in winter

630,000 cubic miles of ice could melt and cause global sea level to rise by 23 ft These ice-sheets and glaciers will be most affected by climate change. The temperatures from the year 2000 to the present have caused several very large glaciers that had long been stable, to begin to melt away.

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The climate of the Arctic is characterized by long, cold winters and short, cool summers., but all regions experience extremes of solar radiation in both summer and winter. Some parts of the Arctic are covered by ice ,whether it is sea ice, glacial ice, or snow year-round.

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  If ‘climate change’ is factual and continues, the lack of  ice and snow cover could change temperatures to a time when nature’s wonders will be known only  as “Back in the day” and seen only in the videos recorded by the tourists now enjoying the sights we take for granted. Just long, dark winter nights.

 Those strange noises caused by those Northern Lights may be history.