Clearly Seeing Late Autumn

Looking east across Patersquash Creek from the path to the dock

I took these pictures yesterday because I knew it would be raining today and I wanted to show the effects of the late autumn climate on the clarity of the air and the clarity of the water down by the dock.

Facing North East toward W. Riviera

The decrease in humidity / water vapor in the air decreases the amount of diffraction of the light and gives a clearer view toward the horizon. It also allows the sky to be more blue rather than grey. 

You can see how well the water reflects the blue sky in the pictures. The reflection is affected by a combination of the stillness of the water because of

The clear water next to the dock

lack of wind and the clarity of the water. The water has become clearer as the water temperature has dropped. Colder water slows the growth of algae, phytoplankton and the zooplankton. The planktons normally grow densely in the estuary environment which is Patersquash Creek, Narrows Bay

The transition point between land and water.

and the Great South Bay.

The pictures show how most of the shore plants have finished for the season and are now reduced to dispersing their seeds and going dormant for the winter.

Standing on the dock and looking around it feels as if the

Looking North up Patersquash Creek

world is standing on a precipice, waiting to fall into the frozen chasm which is winter.

Sonnet 73, William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

Phragmities Seed head with marsh and dock in background

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Additional Reading:

Water Quality Indicators: Temperature and Dissolved Oxygen

Book Excepts

Influence of the winter phytoplankton bloom on the settled material in a temperate shallow estuary