Interesting science facts about clouds

Clouds are made up of millions of tiny droplets of water and ice, suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth.

Since clouds are made out of the tiniest possible droplets of water and ice when pilots pass through them with their planes they do not see nothing but clouds.

The role of clouds in regulating Earth's temperature and climate has still not been fully understand by scientists.

Any planet or moon with an atmosphere has clouds but not all are composed of water and ice like on Earth, for instance Saturn has some clouds composed of droplets of liquid methane.

When we see white clouds in the sky this really means that we are looking at dense deep clouds that exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) so they appear white.

Some scientists believe how the properties of clouds can help predict the upcoming climate change effects.

Clouds reflect a significant proportion of solar radiation back into space.

The lead generated by human activities is causing clouds to form at warmer temperatures, since the temperatures are warmer that means there is less water in the clouds. In years to come this trend could significantly alter the pattern of both rain and snow in a warmer world.

Scientists believe there is a strong link between the Sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds.

Cumulonimbus are the biggest clouds, located at around 9.7 kilometers (6 miles) above us. These clouds are believe to hold up to half a million tons of water.

Stratus are low clouds, middle clouds are altostratus, and high clouds are cirrus.

Dark gray clouds that produces rain is called nimbostratus cloud, the name of this cloud comes from the latin word "Nimbo" meaning rain.

The puffy clouds we often see floating in a blue sky are called cumulus clouds.

The color of a cloud, as seen from our point of view (down at the earth), can tell us almost everything what is currently happening inside the cloud.

The beautiful reddish and orange clouds that occur at sunrise/sunset creating wonderful picture are the result of the scattering of sunlight by the atmosphere, and they are actually not that color but reflect long, not scattered rays of sunlight.