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Karman
Vortex Street -- Alejandro Selkirk Island
Here is a rare meteorological
phenomenon caught by LANDSAT 7 on 9/15/1999. In the southwest of the scene
is Alejandro Selkirk Island, a squarish island that rises almost vertically
1 mile above the southern pacific. A boundary layer that sandwiches a
saturated, unstable layer of clouds between two more stable layers is
broken by the island, causing a formation of vortices known as a Karman
Vortex Street. While Karman Vortex Streets have been created in the laboratory
from smoke or soap films, it is rare to view them in nature, and they
are seldom this well-defined.
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