# Weird geometric lines on the current noaa satellite loop off the coast of Oregon and California. I read on the internet they are ship contrails. Satellite Loop if you want to watch it **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 18, 2022, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717 "2022-02-18T03:14:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/21 "2022-02-18T16:23:51Z")
[Moderating] Moved to MPSIMS. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/22 "2022-02-18T16:54:12Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > That’s interesting. Boat wakes? They look very straight, paralleling the lines of latitude These two lines are what I was referring to — they’re between the two red lines I drew. They are straight like latitude lines, but from this perspective they are curved. [[Album] imgur.com ![](https://i.imgur.com/sfyAbWb.jpeg?fb "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/a/VwPwn3k) ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/23 "2022-02-18T17:08:15Z")
Strange that nobody has mentioned chemtrails yet. Imagine the possibilities, with all the chemicals a ship 🚢 could carry compared with a plane ✈ ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/24 "2022-02-18T17:12:38Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > These two lines are what I was referring to — they’re between the two red lines I drew. If you look closely, there is a smear of fainter lines between, all perfectly parallel to latitude. These must surely be some kind of artifact deriving from the Earth’s rotation. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/25 "2022-02-18T17:17:07Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > It’s good hot exhaust, and with such a large volume of it, it can cohere and rise through calm air to altitudes where it cools and causes the moisture to condense into a ship track. The thing that puzzled me about OP’s original link was that with 15-minute images, long trails (hundreds of miles) appeared quite suddenly, over distances that would take a ship many hours to traverse. The sudden appearance would be attributable to a subtle change in atmospheric conditions. They appear to be moving laterally with the wind as you’d expect, but it’s surprising that a ship’s trail could maintain integrity as a well-defined air mass for so long. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/26 "2022-02-18T17:24:55Z")
Trying to mind control the dolphins? ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/27 "2022-02-18T17:30:49Z")
Or the seagulls. Evil things they are, those [seagulls](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/29/f4/4d/29f44d2efea08cd52fdf2aa34dc13769.jpg). Better control them tightly. ---
**Author:** ![andrewm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c57346/32.png) [@andrewm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewm)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/28 "2022-02-18T21:09:18Z")
That is obviously, to me, sensor noise/artifacts. Imaging sensors are usually either a 2D grid of detectors that images a full scene at once, or a 1D line of detectors that pans over the target (directly or via moving optics) or has the target passed by it (like in conveyor-belt X-ray scanners). [Charge-coupled device - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-coupled_device) shows examples of both styles (although the sensors on this weather satellite are not necessarily CCDs). In either case, it’s common to see things go wrong (usually stuck on or off) with entire rows or columns in the resulting image. For obvious reasons in the 1D case - if something is wrong with the sensor in that position, it’ll be wrong for the whole pass. In the 2D case, although there are individual sensors, entire rows or columns generally share some hardware - amplifiers, buffers, chip bond wires, etc. If something is wrong with row/column hardware, you can get an artifact like this. In a DSLR or smartphone camera of course the artifacts would come out perfectly horizontal or vertical; the weather satellite is perhaps looking through a fisheye lens or something and the post-processing to render the data onto a globe projection warps it into the curve we see. You’ll note the originally linked view is a composite of many of the satellite’s bands (it measures many different wavelength bands). The page has a “band” menu where you can choose to display just one band at a time. Through trial and error I found that the artifacts are occurring on Band 13: [https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/sector\_band.php?sat=G17§or=np&band=13&length=120&dim=1](https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/sector_band.php?sat=G17§or=np&band=13&length=120&dim=1) If you scroll all the way to the bottom of that page you’ll see a footnote: > \*GOES-17 Infrared Image Quality > > During post-launch testing of the GOES-17 ABI instrument, an issue with the instrument’s cooling system was discovered. The loop heat pipe (LHP) subsystem, which transfers heat from the ABI electronics to the radiator, is not operating at its designed capacity. The consequence of this is that the ABI detectors cannot be maintained at their intended temperatures under certain orbital conditions. This is preventing adequate cooling for some of the infrared (IR) channels on the instrument during parts of the night, leading to partial loss of ABI imagery. [Learn more](https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/loopheatpipeanomaly.php). That links to a page ([https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/loopheatpipeanomaly.php](https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/loopheatpipeanomaly.php)) with a more detailed explanation of the issue and a bunch of FAQs. ---
**Author:** ![EastUmpqua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eastumpqua/32/6025_2.png) [@EastUmpqua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EastUmpqua)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/29 "2022-02-18T21:16:17Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > Are you talking about this bit? Yes. I’ve seen this before on this satellite loop. This loop is new to me (I found it a couple months ago). I think it’s a combination of visible and IR. I am very surprised the ship contrails show up so well. ---
**Author:** ![andrewm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c57346/32.png) [@andrewm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewm)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/30 "2022-02-18T21:27:15Z")
The lines in the clip (thanks for not allowing quoting Discourse) that run parallel to latitude look sensor noise, possibly due to the cooling issue described above or possibly just because there isn’t much happening on that band and the gain is cranked way up. You’ll get a very similar effect if you take a DSLR or smartphone photo in the dark and then crank the brightness way up. ---
**Author:** ![EastUmpqua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eastumpqua/32/6025_2.png) [@EastUmpqua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EastUmpqua)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/31 "2022-02-18T21:48:33Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > If you don’t want to be known as a conspiracy guy, then don’t post stupid shit like this: > [@EastUmpqua](#): > > It would not surprise me if someone is trying to make it rain in California. I hope that doesn’t have bad side effects… [Cloud seeding](https://www.dri.edu/cloud-seeding-program/what-is-cloud-seeding/) is real. Learn something. I learned you can see ship tracks on weather satellite loops. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/32 "2022-02-18T21:48:49Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > > [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > > > It’s good hot exhaust, and with such a large volume of it, it can cohere and rise through calm air to altitudes where it cools and causes the moisture to condense into a ship track. > > The thing that puzzled me about OP’s original link was that with 15-minute images, long trails (hundreds of miles) appeared quite suddenly, over distances that would take a ship many hours to traverse. The sudden appearance would be attributable to a subtle change in atmospheric conditions. They appear to be moving laterally with the wind as you’d expect, but it’s surprising that a ship’s trail could maintain integrity as a well-defined air mass for so long. They seem to appear and disappear from day to night which would suggest they’re being picked up by the IR sensor and aren’t visible trails. ---
**Author:** ![EastUmpqua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eastumpqua/32/6025_2.png) [@EastUmpqua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EastUmpqua)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/33 "2022-02-18T23:13:34Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > They seem to appear and disappear from day to night which would suggest they’re being picked up by the IR sensor and aren’t visible trails. I would have thought ship tracks would show up in visible. Because in the IR, I wouldn’t think a heat signature would last that long. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2022, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/34 "2022-02-18T23:42:23Z")
@andrewm thank you sir, good explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2022, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/35 "2022-02-19T01:50:02Z")
From the Wikipedia article on ship tracks linked by @Machine_Elf: > Although ship tracks can sometimes be visible, researchers usually scan the [near-infrared](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared) light coming off the clouds. At this wavelength many ship tracks appear as bright lines that can be distinguished from the surrounding, uncontaminated clouds. On average, polluted clouds reflect more sunlight than their unaffected counterparts. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2022, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717/36 "2022-02-19T04:18:23Z")
The Dope is amazing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-geometric-lines-on-the-current-noaa-satellite-loop-off-the-coast-of-oregon-and-california-i-read-on-the-internet-they-are-ship-contrails-satellite-loop-if-you-want-to-watch-it/959717.md?page=1)