On 25th April 2007, NASA launched a satellite to study the Earth’s highest clouds. Now orbiting at an altitude of 375 miles, the AIM satellite (which stands for ‘Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere’) is the first to be dedicated to the observation of the most mysterious of all the cloud types: Noctilucent clouds.

These clouds typically form at altitudes of between 30 and 50 miles, in a region of the atmosphere called the mesosphere (the one above the stratosphere). They are therefore way higher than most clouds, which tend to form in the lower 10 miles of the atmosphere. Being so far up, Noctilucent clouds catch the sunlight well after sunset, and so can shine bright against the darkening sky. They tend to be bluish-white, with a beautiful rippled texture. Their name is Latin for ‘night-shining’.

We know very little about how and why Noctilucent clouds form and scientists are keen to find out more since. Traditionally seen only towards the poles, they are now being observed at lower latitudes and more frequently than ever before. This has led some scientists to speculate that they are indicators of global climate change. Hence the AIM satellite mission.

Short NASA video about the mission:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9_8_2nL6Vo

Video of the AIM launch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWnur5KxPM&NR=1

More about the AIM launch to study Noctilucent clouds:
http://spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/aim/

The Noctilucent Cloud Observers Homepage:
http://www.kersland.plus.com/

Richard Parnell, Member 7750, has written to tell us of evidence of cloudspotting amongst western lowland gorillas that he observed during a three-year field trip to study them in Congo, Africa.

Richard was observing gorillas from a hide next to a jungle clearing. A family emerged from the foliage and began to make their way across the clearing. After just a few steps out out into the treeless swamp, one juvenile gorilla happened to look up. She suddenly cringed and raced back into the jungle. A few moments later she reemerged, only to look up again and show exactly the same startled reaction.

“I half expected to see a large eagle circling,” Richard told us, “but stepping out from under my tarpaulin canopy, I was rewarded with this fabulous sky, which was undoubtedly the cause of the young gorilla’s alarm.”

Clearly, the incident points towards a remarkable evolutionary development for the gorilla species: their ability to react emotionally to cloudscapes. This gorilla’s reaction may not have been quite the one we’d have hoped for, but it is perhaps forgivable. No doubt, if you were the first of your species to behold the drama and beauty of the Cirrocumulus undulatus cloud, you too would be in a state of shock.

Are you a teacher who would like to make more use of the sky in your classes? ‘For Spacious Skies’ is a US organisation set up to encourage the use of the sky as an educational resource.

They produce an activity pack, with vaulable ideas and resources for teaching sky awareness to children. We think this is a very worthwhile endeavour. According to a study by Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, the incorporation of the guide into educational programs has been shown to increase visual arts and literary skills.

Jack Borden, the founder of For Spacious Skies, argues that people who are sky-aware have five advantages: they are environmentally protective; aesthetically sensitized to the world; spiritual, having more of a sense of wonder about them; mellower, and more receptive to information related to the atmosphere. Who can argue with that?

If you would like to get a copy of the For Spacous Skies Activity Pack, as well as their cloud formations chart, visit:
http://www.forspaciousskies.com/chart.html
or email Jack Borden at: jjborden@webtv.net

‘Hole punch clouds’, also known as ‘fallstreak holes’, occur when patches of high cloud freeze and fall as ice crystals, leaving a dramatic gap behind. You can see examples of fallstreak holes in our cloud photography gallery.

The formations only appear in cloud layers consisting largely of ‘supercooled’ water droplets. These remain liquid even though temperatures are often well below freezing point. They are unable to freeze without airbourne particles, known as ‘freezing nuclei’, on which to get started. Sometimes there just aren’t enough of these particles floating around in the atmosphere for droplets to turn into ice crystals. In these situations, the introduction of suitable nuclei into a region of supercooled cloud can make it freeze and fall below. The particles in airline exhausts can serve as freezing nuclei, as can ice crystals themselves, falling from Cirrus clouds above.

Peter Roper, Cloud Appreciation Society Member No. 5840, alerted us to this NASA image of hole punch clouds photographed from space. The lines are caused by aircraft flying near to the cloud. The holes are probably due to Cirrus falling from above.

Hole punch clouds from NASA’s Terra satellite:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17539

NASA’s Mars Expolration Rover turns out to be a robot with a penchant for cloudspotting. In October 2006, during a routine communications pass, it filmed some of the red planet’s clouds and gave us a glimpse at how cloudscapes on Mars compare to those on Earth.
The formation that it photographed looks much like the patches of ice crystals that we call ‘Cirrocumulus’. We have yet to learn the Klingon translation.

See the NASA web page about these martian clouds:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09170

Ancient Hindus and Bhuddists believed that elephants are the spiritual cousins of clouds and possess the power to encourage the clouds to form and bring rain. We have always thought that this is why so many people seem to see elephant-shaped clouds.
However, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found evidence to suggest that, rather than elephants, it is microscopic phytoplankton that actually posses the power to bring clouds. They found that increases in cloud cover over the Southern Ocean, around Antarctica, corresponded to a large bloom in the population of the sea organisms. It seems that the phytoplankton emit chemicals which find their way up into the atmosphere and act as microscopic nuclei onto which the cloud droplets can form.
If you want to know more:
http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php?id=1183

On 28th April 2006, two NASA satellites, called CloudSat and CALIPSO, were launched into orbit 438 miles above the Earth to get a better view of the clouds. Whilst this may sound like a rather expensive indulgence for the cloudspotters of the science world, it begins to make more sense when you learn that clouds are the wildcards in climate change.
Will a warming planet lead to more or less cloud cover? Will any changes in the amount and type of cloud contribute to, or lessen, global warming? The new satellites should help scientists’ quest for answers.
CloudSat will profile the clouds with an extremely sensitive radar to determine how much water they contain and whether this is in the form of droplets or ice crystals. It will help clarify basic questions about how clouds form rain and snow, as well as how they affect the Earth’s climate. CALIPSO will provide data about the amount of microscopic ‘aerosols’ in the atmosphere, such as man-made pollution, volcanic ash and mineral particles. These affect how the Sun warms the planet and also play a cruical role in cloud formation.
Finally, we might learn how clouds react to a warming planet.
To read more about CloudSat:
http://cloudsat.atmos.colostate.edu/home
To watch videos of the launch:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cloudsat/launch/calipsocloudsat-allvideos.html

He was one of Britain’s best cloud painters, and described the sky in his landscape painting as ‘the keynote… the chief organ of sentiment’. This means that the new John Constable exhibition opening at the Tate Britain, in London, is a must see for any cloudspotters finding themselves in the capital. The show brings together, for the very first time, all of the artist’s six-foot landscape canvases and includes 65 works in total.
Constable: The Great Landscapes is showing at Tate Britain from 1 June till 28 August 2006:
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/constable/

Stretching over 12,000 square kilometers, the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is the largest salt lake on the planet. It is also one of the best places in the world to go cloudspotting. For brief periods during the rainy season, the salt lake becomes flooded with a layer of water just a few centimeters deep. This turns it into an enormous mirror of the sky, reflecting the clouds above to make you feel like you are suspended in the mid-heavens.
Argentinian artist, Tomas Saraceno, used an array of 32 cameras to film a panoramic view of this cloudtopia. His film is currently being projected along the eighty-meter wall of the Curve Gallery in London’s Barbican Centre.
Now we know what heaven looks like.
Visit The Barbian to see Tomas Saraceno’s art installation (until 16th July):
http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=4107

We always love a cloud with a name. This thunderstorm complex is well known by scientists interested in tropical meteorology, as it forms on a daily basis at certain times of year over the Tiwi Islands, off the north coast of Australia.
It forms on almost a daily basis during the transitional months of Nov-Dec and Feb-March, which makes it a perfect subject for meteorologists studying the development of Cumulonimbus clouds.
Mighty thunderclouds like this are estimated to harness the power of ten Hiroshima-sized bombs. Stretching up to 20km into the atmosphere, it is clearly visible from Darwin, over 100km away. We are very pleased that such an awe-inspiring and ferocious a monster as this has been christened by the locals with a name like Hector.
Many thanks to Tim Garrett for sending the photos in.

Conscious of increasingly frequent and wide-spread observations of Noctilucent clouds (see May’s Cloud of the Month), scientists have speculated as to whether this extremely high ice cloud is an aerial indicator of our contribution to climate change. Forming at altitudes of between 30 and 50 miles up, these clouds might be appearing more often due to increased levels of greenhouse gasses. But until we know how these mysterious clouds form and why they appear to be more common, all scientists can do is speculate.
That is about to change, however. NASA’s ‘AIM’ satellite, due to be launched later this year, should shed new light on this beguiling cloud formation.
More info about the AIM mission:
http://aim.hamptonu.edu/
More info about Noctilucent clouds:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/19feb_nlc.htm

Annie Leymarie (member number 828) tells us that Station Luxembourg in Paris is covered in clouds. Artist, Sandrine Alouf, has created a photographic installation, which runs along the RER B platforms of the station. “By showing clouds on the Paris Metro,” explains Alouf, “I intend to give them a new life and to create an installation of visual poetry.” Can’t argue with that.
http://www.a-ciel-ouvert.com/

Do you live in a dungeon without a window? Don’t worry – you can still enjoy the gentle drift of cumulus by tunrning your TV into a tool for meteorological meditation.
‘Colorcalm Skies’ is a DVD of ever-changing, calming cloudscapes to play in the background as you practice your yoga, realign your chakras or just have a row with your partner. You can choose from a range of different coloured backgrounds and music to suit your mood. Stop watching Big Brother and turn your TV into a temple to cloudgazing.
Colorcalm Skies is available from:
http://colorcalm.com/main.php

Just when you thought you had to go all the way to Cape Town, South Africa, to see the famous Tablecloth Cloud that forms on top of Table Mountain, some kind fellows have put up a 24-hour webcam. You can watch this ‘orographic’ cloud spread out across the mountain plateau from the comfort of your home. Essential viewing for lazy cloudspotters.
Go to the Table Mountain webcam at http://midafricam.co.za/main/content/view/16/39/lang,en/

A computer game with no winners and losers? One in which you just fly around making clouds? It can only have come from students at the University of Southern California, dude…
http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/

Those who yearn for a little more depth to their cloud photographs should take a look at the 3D photography of Luc de Rop, a member from Sinaai, Belgium. Finally, something worthwhile to look at with those silly glasses that you saved from the back of a cereal packet*…
Go to Luc de Rop’s site

* You can also get the 3D effect with the use of a small mirror.

Every cloudspotter should be familiar with the sage words of the english Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, so we have put up an
excerpt from ‘Modern Painters’ in which he wonders, as do we, why people don’t look up more…

March 13th sees building work begin on the Italian Government’s Congress Centre in Rome. Suspended in the centre of the new building, which is designed by the Roman architect, Massimiliano Fuksas, will be an enormous ‘cloud’ made of teflon. The cloud will glow from within, and will contain an auditorium.

This will hold up to 1800 people. Nevertheless, we feel it necessary to warn the local government that there will be chaos when every 5-year-old in Rome turns up and wants to go inside to finally see what it’s like to stand inside a cloud.
more info and images…

see:http://www.newhouse.com/archive/sefton022306.html

Wilson A. Bentley, attracted world attention with his pioneering work in the area of photomicrography, most notably his extensive work with snow crystals (commonly known as snowflakes). By adapting a microscope to a bellows camera, and years of trial and error, he became the first person to photograph a single snow crystal in 1885.
To read about Bentley, visit:
http://www.snowflakebentley.com/index.htm

We have recently seen a sneak preview of a new photography book called ‘Recognize’ by Glen E. Friedman.

Legendary photographer, Glen E. Friedman, made his name in the 1980s photographing the likes of the Beastie Boys (when they were just an emerging talent) and the cream of rap artists on Def Jam recordings. His photography books include ‘DogTown – The Legend Of The Z-Boys’, charting the emergence of skate culture in West Coast America, and he co-produced the seminal feature-length documentary on the same subject, ‘DogTown and Z-Boys’.

We are very pleased that Friedman should turn his attention to photographing our fluffy friends in all their respendent glory. The shots are, pure and simple, majestic cloudscapes unsullied by any piffling little distractions like the ground.

Recognize by Glen E. Friedman is published in the US, and available from amazon.com. We highly recommend it.

We were sent a book called ‘Wind Blown Clouds’ compiles by Alec Findlay. With it, he sent the following message:

‘Since 1999 I have run an artist participation project titled Wind Blown Clouds, collecting slide photos from around the globe.I am about to publish a 228 page anthology of them (Wind Blown Clouds) with Rizzoli in NYC. This also features some haiku about clouds.’

and invited cloud photographers to contribute:

‘You are invited to contribute to an anthology of ‘wind blown clouds’. Take a colour slide-photograph of a wind blown cloud. Include
a note of the date and place the slide was taken, your name and postal address.

There is no limit to the number of clouds that you can submit. The clouds will appear in a forthcoming anthology.’

Alec Findlay,
morning star
Off Quay Building
Foundry Lane
Byker
Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE6 1LH
alecfinlay@yahoo.com

Ever looked out the window and wished you knew the name of the clouds looking back at you?

Of course you have.

Well, help is at hand – in the form of The Skywatcher’s Cloud Chart. With photographs and captions by John A Day, author of The Book of Clouds, it is the chart of choice for the American Meteorological Society and the Weather Channel, and a worthwhile addition to any cloudspotter’s wall.

Following extensive and hard-nosed negotiation, members of The Cloud Appreciation Society can buy it from Jack Borden’s For Spacious Skies website at the reduced price of $11.45 + postage. For those in the US, that means a total of $13.95. It is large, laminated and sent in a sturdy cardboard tube so, for members outside of the US, postage is considerably more.

Just quote your membership number when you order from http://www.forspaciousskies.com.

Inspired by Marc Kremers’ sky diary (see below), Valeska Oostrum has started her own, showing the skies above her home village of De Lier in The Netherlands (it is between Rotterdam and The Hague).
You can visit Valeska’s sky diary here.

Marc Kremers, from London, kept a ‘sky diary’ last year. He used his camera phone to take a snap of the sky above him about four times a day over a period of several months. He wanted to see just how grey the skies over London really were, and to record how they changed with the seasons. The results of Marc’s sky diary are here:
http://tex-server.org/work/photographs/phone
/t610/theskyabovemarc/index.html
What a great idea. We’d love to see similar records of the skies above other cities of the world. If cloudspotters feel inspired to use camera phones to record their own sky diaries and they put them online as Marc has, we’ll add a link for others to see.
Send your sky diaries to:
hello@cloudappreciationsociety.org

No one could agree where they had formed and everyone claimed to have been the photographer. We decided to investigate…

Read more The Mystery Storms

The question of what music to listen to while gazing at the clouds has finally been solved. Nicolas Reeves, a professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada, has invented The Cloud Harp – an instrument that creates music from the shape of the clouds above it. So far, it has played in six cities around the world – Amos and Montreal (Canada), Lyon (France), Hamburg (Germany), Gizycko (Poland), and Pittsburgh (US).

When the sky is blue, the harp is silent, but with the first appearance of clouds above it, the music begins. “It uses a lidar,” explains Reeves, “which is a laser beam directed at the clouds. Whatever bounces back to the instrument is measured and gives us an idea of the brightness of the cloud, as well as its height.” A controller, known as a ‘cloudist’, configures the instrument so that this information triggers and controls particular musical sounds. He then leaves it to play the music of the clouds to passers by.

Sometimes musicians are brought in to provide orchestrations by recording the samples that the harp plays.“It means that we can play the clouds of St Louis, Missouri, through an arrangement by Helmut Finski of Montreal,” explains Reeves.

In Amos, in Northern Quebec, the Cloud Harp was installed in the clearing of a park, surrounded by trees. “When there was a full moon,” Reeves remembers, “people brought their sleeping bags and stayed the night next to the harp. They just lay there listening to the clouds – it was fantastic.”

See more about The Cloud Harp at
www.cloudharp.org.

We were very excited to be contacted by the one and only John Day of Oregon, USA. He is commonly known as the Cloudman, as he has devoted his latter years to photographing, enthusing about and explaining the clouds. His website is full of fantastic images and information. We recommend it highly.
Indeed, eagle-eyed cloudspotters will notice that society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, was filmed reading John Day’s book in the first of his short programmes about clouds and the Morning Glory. The fact that he fell asleep having read it should not be taken as evidence that it is anything other than a great book.
Visit John Day’s website:http://www.cloudman.com

Soon-to-be-member, John Diefenbach, is based in Japan and has filmed the world’s last mainline steam trains, which operate in Inner Mongolia. Filming in mid-winter, with temperatures down to -30C, the steam effects, in some cases, are spectacular. We told him that we are cloudspotters, not train spotters, but it is fair to say that there is not much difference between what comes out of the train’s funnel and a time-lapse image of a cumulus cloud. Similar to the case of the UPS cloud stamps mentioned below, John’s films will be the ultimate for cloud enthusiasts who are also train nerds.
See John’s films at:
http://www.bachsitetoo.com

We were contacted recently by the venerable Jack Borden, Boston TV news reporter turned sky enthusiast. At the age of 45 he woke up from a nap in a nature preserve to see a sky he had never experience in all his previous life. “In a millisecond I saw more of the sky than in all my life to that point,” he says. He decided to quit his job and become a missionary of the sky. For Spacious Skies is the campaign he’s been running for twenty years or so to get school children and everyone else to pay more attention to what’s going on above us.
http://www.forspaciousskies.com/

If you are a cloudspotter who collects stamps, prepare to have an orgasm. The US Postal Service has issued a set of stamps starring fifteen different types of cloud. All basic genera are featured except, that is, for the nimbostratus. But then it is a bit of a wet, wingey cloud, so we guess it’s fair enough.

There’s nothing quite as mesmerizing as watching time-lapse clouds.