It will be a dark Christmas for the people of Utqiaġvik, Alaska, who have grown used to going without sunlight for more than two months each year. The city is in the Arctic Circle, the highest circle of latitude on Earth. Because of the Earth’s slight tilt (倾斜), the Arctic Circle is either fully exposed to the sun or completely shaded from it at different times of the year as the planet orbits. In late November, the sun sets for the final time as the Arctic Circle enters two months of “polar nights”— a phenomenon in which night lasts for more than 24 hours.
A video clip from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, taken from a sea ice camera at Utqiaġvik, showed the strange experience of 24 hours without sun. The sky turned from pale to bright blue, before complete blackness came on for several hours. The waves crashed against “landfast ice” — frozen seawater that is stuck to the coast in cold climates — while a few people and cars moved about. The glimmer (微光) of pale blue light seen at the start of the clip is known as “civil twilight”, when the light from the sun is just barely visible but the sun itself has not risen above the horizon (地平线).
Utqiaġvik, which is the northernmost city in the US, will not experience another sunrise until about 1:09pm local time on January 23, 2024. Even then, the sun will only be up for about an hour. After that date, daylight hours will get longer and longer throughout spring until reaching “midnight sun” — the opposite of polar night. At that point, Utqiaġvik will see 24 hours of sunlight each day for several months.
University of Alaska Fairbanks explained its Utqiaġvik sea ice camera helps to monitor not just day to day conditions but also longer-term environmental changes.
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