Mila Zinkova (site) caught this towering horizon mirage and color fringed ocean glitter on Nov 15, '08 from Pigeon Point Lighthouse about 60 miles south of San Francisco. She was 10-20 ft above the sea level. ©Mila Zinkova, shown with permission.
The cold ocean has produced a temperature inversion, cool air trapped below warmer, ideal for superior mirage and even Fata Morgana formation. Here we are seeing not a mirage of the sun (which was 15� high) but of the glints from the undulating ocean surface. Each glint acts as an individual source of light which is refracted and miraged by the intervening air. The upper blue-green edge to the mirage arises from the stronger refraction of green and blue rays compared with red (dispersion). Parts of the mirage also vertically magnify the color dispersion. The refraction is so strong that even the lower glints have upper green and lower red edges.
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