Even without a map overlay, global cloud patterns can reveal the shape and location of many of Earth’s continents. This global map of cloud fraction in October 2009 demonstrates the pattern.
With just a few clicks of a camera and a mouse, you can contribute to research that will help atmospheric scientists better understand how clouds affect climate.
The rare night-shining clouds seen in this photo are both forming more frequently and becoming brighter, trends that point to changes in the atmosphere linked to greenhouse gases.
Polar mesospheric clouds (also known as noctilucent, or “night-shining” clouds) are transient, upper atmospheric phenomena that are usually observed in the summer months at high latitudes (greater than 50 degrees) of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. They appear bright and cloudlike while in deep twilight. They are illuminated by sunlight when the lower layers of the atmosphere are in the darkness of Earth’s shadow.
High-altitude night-shining clouds form and dissipate on a daily cycle revealed in this series of images made from data from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA’s Aura satellite.