It is essentially a complex optical phenomenon due to a temperature inversion of touching atmospheric layers.
In mild weather, the seamless interaction between the warm overlying air and the denser cold air near the ground surface can act as a refracting lens, creating a vertically inverted image on which the distant straight image appears to float.
Fata Morgana is usually seen in the morning hours after a cold night that results in radiant heat escaping into space.
The first mention of a Fata Morgana in English, in 1818, was of a similar mirage seen in the Straits of Messina, between Calabria and Sicily. It is a common phenomenon in high mountain valleys such as the San Luis Valley of Colorado where the phenomenon is magnified due to the curvature of the valley floor that compensates for the curvature of the Earth. A similar kind of mirage has also been observed in Toyama Bay on the west coast of Japan as well as in the Great Lakes of North America. It is likely to be seen in Arctic seas on very calm mornings, or often on the ice-covered Antarctic shelves.
Fata Morgana belongs to superior mirages, which are distinguished from the more common inferior mirages, which create the illusion of distant water puddles in the desert and “wet pavement” on very hot roads.
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