Haze Causes Sky In Indonesia To Turn Red & No It’s Not A Camera Filter

By
Victor Fong
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You ever get that feeling while playing a game, like you’re just chilling and enjoying yourself killing normal monsters?

And then suddenly the dangerous BGM drops, the background turns dark, the scenery turns red.

Oh shit is about to get real. A boss battle is approaching.

That’s pretty much how you feel every day if you happen to live and wake up in Indonesia.

This isn’t photoshopped:

Image: Reddit (u/droid15_)

Slap some kind of video game logo on that, and I’ll be fooled into thinking it’s a video game preview there.

At this point, you’re either really scared, or your body is shaking from the excitement of battle hunger.

Blood-red Skies In Muaro Jambi, Indonesia

That image isn’t the only one you’ll find. That’s taken off Reddit, and you can find the video here, or a mirror:

A series of similar red sky images and videos have also been shared on Twitter and other social media like Reddit since 21 September 2019.

While riding a motorcycle, the entire sky and even the backdrop appear to be hellish red in colour:

And this is a video taken at a darker hour, which still shows that the sky is red:

Malay Mail indicates that the sky turned red from 21 Sep noon until 4pm local time.

In all the videos, you can also see the smog present. Residents of the area could still smell the smoke and inhale the ashes. They can’t escape the haze even if they stay indoors.

Cause of Red Sky

Indonesian Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysical Agency (BMKG) Jambi says that the colour change was caused by the inability of the sun to reach the ground due to the thick smog.

It will stop when the pollutants are blown away by wind or rain.

If you need an in-depth explanation, Stephen Corfidi, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), explains it in detail here: Scientific American.

Image: Giphy

The short version is:

  • Sunlight is scattered by air molecules.
  • Blue light is scattered first because they have shorter wavelengths.
  • Sunlight appears more yellowish as a result.
  • Aerosols (solid or liquid suspended in air) scatters even more light with a shorter wavelength.
  • Red, with the longest wavelength, will scatter last.

The interesting thing here is, if the pollution is even worse, then you wouldn’t be able to see anything because even the red is scattered.

Or, we could ditch all the science and just say that a boss battle is happening soon on Earth, since someone or something sure ain’t happy that we’re burning so many forests down.

Meanwhile, I guess we can just enjoy this accurate meme of what’s happening with the haze:

This is all fine, I guess.

Image: Giphy

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Victor Fong
Email: [email protected]