Why is sunrise different from sunset

I had the impression in general the air mass in the morning is cooler, which may account for some subtle differences in coloring. But I may be wrong. Hey James, great post! While the conditions are essentially the same as far as the light-angles and effects are concerned, the major difference I came up with is the viewers relationship to the events.

Optically the temperature difference would be very slight, if noticed at all. My caveat for this post is that I have way more experience w Sunsets, and practically none w Sunrises. Here in southern NJ I find there's a marked difference driven I suspect by the Sun rising in the morning over the cool Atlantic Ocean, where the evening sunset is over warm land. We're close enough to the coast that the morning sky is illuminated by light reflected of the water, and on clear morning there not much dust in the cool dry air.

And the morning sky often is cloudless where the afternoon sky can have considerable cloud cover due to daytime heating which also draws dust to the higher cloud layers. Post a Comment. James Gurney. This weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers.

Sunrise and Sunset are the two most beautiful and captivating phenomena that occur daily and are hard to ignore. Both these terms are related to the sun. You might have guessed it already by looking at the names sun-rise and sun-set. Both the events are vital for the survival of humans, plants, animals and other lifeforms because it helps energize the surrounding and imparts a strong feeling of energy that keeps the ecosystem running every day.

Despite both these terms are analytically differentiable, people still tend to confuse them for some reason. It is important to understand their differences. Sunrise and Sunset are distinguished in the article. The difference between Sunrise and Sunset is that sunrise occurs in the morning and sunset occurs in the evening.

When there is sunrise, the sun stays in the sky, whereas during sunset, the sun disappears, and the sky becomes completely dark. Sunrises in the morning, and it always rises in the east direction and stays in the sky for almost 12 hours a day. The intensity of sun rays increases as time passes. At noon the sun is at its peak intensity. If people head out during this time of the day, they can get severe sunburns and headaches.

Sunsets in the evening, and it always sets in the west direction. Sunset also lasts for almost 12 hours a day. That means there's no inherent, natural cause of a major optical difference between them.

However, two human factors break their symmetry. The first is in our heads. Some hues may be lost or perceived in a manner peculiar to sunset. At sunrise, however, the night's darkness has left us with very acute night vision and every faint, minor change in the sky's color is evident.

Human activities also drive a divergence between them. The dawn is clearer than any other time of day. It's a matter of opinion whether pollution or a lack of it makes for prettier twilights.

At dawn, clearer skies enable more brilliant reds and oranges to make their way through the atmosphere to your eyes , whereas thicker atmospheres at dusk tend to dull these colors, leading to more washed-out sunsets.