How Does Air Pollution Affect Sunset Colors? Intense red sunsets are often visible when forest fires are burning nearby, or when volcanic eruptions happen. The most heavily polluted cities in the world also tend to have more orange and red sunsets, resulting from an abundance of human-made aerosols.

Are red Skies pollution?

" says Craig Bohren, professor emeritus of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University. "It is certainly true that the 'pollution' results in redder sunsets." To get a red sky, you need aerosols, explains A. R. Ravishankara, director of chemical sciences at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.

What causes a red sunset?

Why is the sunset red or orange? ... However, at sunset, light has further to travel through the atmosphere. The shorter wavelength blue light is scattered further, as the sunlight passes over a greater distance, and we see the longer wavelength yellow and red light. These effects are a cause of Rayleigh Scattering.