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Learn About the Different Types of Clouds | WhatsThisCloud

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Introducing the ten main types of clouds, including a description of each, their altitude levels, how to identify them, and what makes each cloud unique.

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Each of the planets in our solar system experiences its own unique weather. But one thing is certain: Only Earth has weather we can live with.

Let's take a weather tour of the solar system to see what each planet has to offer.

Mercury

Because it is so close to the Sun, any vacation on Mercury would be ruined by extreme temperatures. During the daytime, the Sun would appear three times larger and more than 10 times brighter than it does here on Earth.

All of that sunlight can push temperatures as high as 800℉. That's even hotter than the oven can get in your kitchen at home! Then at night, because there is no atmosphere to trap the daytime heat, temperatures can drop as low as -300℉. Brrr!
Learn more about Mercury!

Venus

You might think that because Mercury is so close to the Sun, it would hold the record for hottest planet in the solar system. But that title actually belongs to Venus.

Venus is covered by a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and clouds made of sulfuric acid. Together, these act like a greenhouse, trapping heat and warming the planet. Venus can reach a scorching-hot average temperature of 847℉! If Venus ever had any oceans, they dried up long ago.
Learn more about Venus!

Mars

Daytime temperatures on Mars can be close to winter temperatures on Earth, reaching as high as 32℉. But Mars' thin atmosphere cannot hold onto heat from the Sun. So at night, temperatures can be more like -200℉.

The many orbiters and rovers that have been studying Mars have found that there might have once been a lot of water on the Red Planet. But what's left is not enough to feed a water cycle like the one we have on Earth. So, Mars is mostly desert.

And on Mars, the desert comes with giant dust storms that can cover the planet in dust for weeks. Smaller wind patterns also kick up "dust devils," like desert tornados.

Curious what the weather is like on Mars right now? Check out today's weather report from the Insight lander on Mars!
Learn more about Mars!

Jupiter

You couldn't really spend time on Jupiter's surface to experience the weather there. Jupiter is a gas giant-meaning it doesn't have a solid surface to stand on. That aside, we can still look at its weather.

Jupiter is a stormy planet that is probably best known for its Great Red Spot. The spot is actually a giant, wild storm that has been raging for more than 300 years.

But the Great Red Spot is certainly not Jupiter's only storm. The entire planet is covered in bands of swirling clouds high in the atmosphere that are likely made mostly of ammonia.
Learn more about Jupiter!

Saturn

By the time you reach gas giant Saturn and its beautiful rings, you are really far from the Sun - about 900 million miles. That's almost twice as far out as Jupiter. That distance comes with a freezing average temperature of about -285℉.

The most familiar weather in the solar system is actually on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Scientists believe that Titan experiences seasons, has clouds that rain and has an atmosphere made largely of nitrogen, just like ours.

Unfortunately, rather than a water cycle, Titan cycles a chemical called methane. The rain that falls from the clouds is methane, and it falls into lakes, rivers and seas of methane. And Titan is far too cold for human tourists.
Learn more about Saturn!

Uranus

Uranus is known as an ice giant, and it lives up to that name. Its temperature is about -360℉.

Uranus is also tilted on its axis by 98 degrees. Scientists believe that it was knocked on its side by a large object long ago.

Since Uranus is so far away, it takes about 84 Earth years to make a single orbit. And each of its seasons is 21 Earth years long!

Uranus' tilt causes some unusual seasonal changes as it orbits the Sun. In summer and winter, large parts of the planet see nothing but daytime or nighttime for the whole season - 21 years. In spring and fall, Uranus goes through a full day-to-night cycle every 17 hours. Uranus sometimes has huge storms, and this unusual seasonal cycle might play a part in them.
Learn more about Uranus!

Neptune

Neptune is way out there - an average of 2.8 billion miles from the Sun. That means the ice giant is seriously cold. The average temperature on Neptune is about -360℉.

If that sounds familiar, it's because Uranus is about the same temperature. The reason why the two planets are the same temperature at such different distances from the Sun is still a mystery.

Neptune has a thick atmosphere and is covered by constantly changing clouds that whip around the planet. Wind is the name of the game on Neptune. Wind speeds there have been measured at near 1,200 miles per hour, making them the fastest in the solar system!
Learn more about Neptune!

Earth has some pretty wild weather. But after seeing the other options in our solar system, it seems like a pretty good place to live!

The best way to handle Earth's extreme weather is to be prepared and keep an eye on the weather forecast. Thankfully, NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R) series of weather satellites is always monitoring severe weather.

GOES-R satellites track hurricanes, tornadoes and other big storms. These satellites also keep an eye on weather caused by the Sun - called space weather. With this information, meteorologists can make forecasts that help people stay safe.

Earth may not be the only planet with weather, but it's got the only weather we can live with!

Related Resources for Educators

NASA's Eyes on Extreme Weather
SCaN Planetary Weather Activities

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What Is the Weather Like on Other Planets?

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Each of the planets in our solar system experiences its own unique weather.

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Games and Simulations | Center for Science Education

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The UCAR Center for Science Education develops state-of-the-art educational experiences that connect NCAR|UCAR science including weather, climate, air quality, and the Sun-Earth connection, to diverse learners, creating pathways towards a scientifically literate society.

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Where does one ocean start and another begin?

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Where does one ocean start and another begin?

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Where Does One Ocean End And Another Begin?

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Abstract

The Earth has been around for a long time. Earth's climate history is called its paleoclimate, where "paleo" means old or ancient. In this article, we explain how studying paleoclimate helps us understand how and why the Earth (and the life on it) evolved over time. Scientists can study the fossils, chemicals, and minerals preserved in ice or ancient rocks. Using this information, as well as computer models of Earth's past climate, scientists can figure out climate changes going back millions of years. Understanding past climate changes helps us understand how Earth's climate is changing now, and how it might further change in the future.

What Was Earth's Climate Like in the Past?

The Earth is 4.5 billion years old-that is 4,500,000,000 years! It would take you over 1,000 years just to count to that number! Modern humans have only been around for about 200,000 years, so a lot of time passed before humans had an impact on the Earth.

Throughout Earth's history, the planet's has changed dramatically. The climate of ancient Earth is called its paleoclimate, and scientists study it to understand how Earth's climate might change in the future. In Figure 1, you can see how, in the past, Earth's climate was either much warmer or much colder than it is today. Over the past million years, there have been several ice ages, occurring approximately every 100 thousand years ( Figure 1B). During the more recent ice ages, early humans started to evolve to what we are now. Thick ice sheets covered much of Europe and North America; in the UK, ice extended up to 1,000 meters above your head! Temperatures were much colder, but there were still big animals that were specially adapted to those icy environments, including wooly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers.

Figure 1 - (A) Changes in Earth's carbon dioxide (CO₂) (left) and temperature (right) over the last 400 million years [1].

This is only a small section of Earth's 4.5-billion-year history. Notice how the x-axis changes. The red line shows the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere before humans started burning fossil fuels. Future scenarios are dependent on how much CO₂ we release. (B) A more detailed view of temperature changes throughout the ice ages over the past 1 million years, constructed from Antarctic ice cores [2]. These show how much climate has changed naturally throughout Earth's history.

If we keep going further back in time, temperatures were much higher than they are today. During the Eocene (about 56-45 million years ago), there were no ice caps at all, and palm trees and crocodiles lived in the Arctic! Before then, between 150 and 80 million years ago in the Cretaceous period, dinosaurs lived on the Earth. Temperatures were even higher, more than 13°C warmer than today. A lot of the Earth was covered in tropical rainforests, including the UK. Antarctica was covered with forests, and those fossils tell us that cold-blooded reptiles lived there, similar to those that live in the tropics today.

If we continue to go back in time, around 600-700 million years ago, there was a period called the Cryogenian. During this period, the Earth was completely covered in ice, even at the equator. Scientists call this "snowball Earth." This may sound unpleasant, but these cold temperatures likely led to an explosion of life in the oceans, which was responsible for the start of most living things we see today. As you can see, humans are just a tiny part of Earth's history.

What Controlled Past Climates?

So what caused these big changes in climate? This is complicated because there are many different reasons, and they occurred over different timescales.

One major long-term controller of climate is the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These gases include carbon dioxide (CO ₂) and methane (CH ₄), and they act like a greenhouse around the Earth by trapping heat energy from the Sun. More greenhouse gases trap more heat, so temperatures rise. The amount of greenhouse gases has changed slowly and naturally throughout Earth's history. There are lots of reasons for these changes, including the amount of volcanic activity, changes in ocean circulation, the types of vegetation, and complicated processes like weathering of rocks. More recently, greenhouse gases have been increasing dramatically due to human activity such as burning fossil fuels. A rapid increase in greenhouse gases is playing a major role in the climate change that is happening today [].

Another major controller of climate is the position of Earth's continents ( Figure 2A). Continents move on very long timescales because blocks of land sit on a layer of molten lava called the mantle, which is moving them very slowly. Every 300-500 million years, Earth's continents join together into one massive continent. For example, around 175 million years ago, all of Earth's land was joined together in one supercontinent called Pangea. When Pangea broke apart, it changed wind and ocean currents, eroded land, and created big volcanoes. All these things had significant impacts on Earth's climate, partly by changing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Figure 2 - Natural processes that control climate.

(A) The position of Earth's continents can change. In the past all of Earth's land was joined together in one super continent called Pangea [4]. (B) The Earth's orbit around the Sun changes through time [5]. These are called Milankovitch cycles, and they impact the amount of heat that reaches the earth, which can influence climate.

Earth's vegetation also influences climate. The first land plants evolved about 470 million years ago and began to suck CO ₂ out of the atmosphere. These early plants may therefore have cooled the climate leading to "snowball Earth." Later, vegetation with dark green leaves (like ferns and trees) evolved. The dark colors absorbed the Sun's energy, which may have helped warm the planet.

The Sun's energy is the most important factor keeping the planet warm enough for life to exist-but the amount of energy we receive from the Sun is not constant. The way the Earth travels around the Sun changes in cycles of hundreds of thousands of years. The amount of energy reaching Earth is controlled by how close the Earth is to the Sun, how much the Earth's axis tilts, and how much the Earth wobbles as it spins. These cyclic changes are called Milankovitch cycles ( Figure 2B). These cycles impact Earth's climate and are responsible for the ice ages that occurred over the past 2 million years ( Figure 1B) [ 5].

There are also short, explosive events that can impact climate, including meteorites, which are big rocks from outer space that hit the Earth. For example, the dinosaurs went extinct when a huge meteorite hit the Earth 65 million years ago. The impact released ash and soot high into the atmosphere, which reflected some of the Sun's energy back into space, away from the Earth. This cooled the planet; meaning plants and dinosaurs could no longer survive. However, seeds buried in the soil were preserved and grew again when the climate started to recover and warm.

How Do We Measure Past Climates?

Because we do not have a time machine to go back and measure Earth's paleoclimate, scientists must use creative methods to understand what climate used to be like. One way to look into the past is to drill and extract ice from the north and south poles. These can be up to 3,000 meters long! Scientists directly measure small air bubbles in the ice that still contain CO ₂ from when they were formed, some as long as 800,000 years ago.

As we discussed, there were many times during Earth's history when there was no ice on the Earth. So, what do scientists do then? One method is to use . Proxies are physical materials that record past conditions. Proxy materials can be fossils, molecules, or minerals found in ancient sediments ( Figure 3). For example, fossils of animals and plants (including plant pollen) can tell us about the climate of the past. If sediments contain palm tree fossils, for example, the climate was probably hot and tropical in that location in the past.

Figure 3 - Scientists use ice cores, proxies like shelled organisms and fossils, and climate models to estimate past changes in paleoclimate.

One of the most useful proxies is found in the oceans-the remains of tiny, shelled organisms called plankton. During their lives, these tiny organisms built their shells from molecules in the surrounding water. When they died, their shells floated to the ocean floor and were buried. When scientists dig up these tiny shells, they can calculate the number of organisms and analyze the molecules in the shells. This helps them understand what the environment was like when those organisms were alive, including climate factors like CO ₂ and temperature.

Another method to reconstruct the past is to use computers to build model worlds that simulate both past and future climate. These models use mathematical equations to represent the complex processes that make up the climate system. Scientists set up these models using information about the world today, which can then be changed to match the conditions found in the past. These models are very complex, so they need to be run on big supercomputers. Scientists can run simulations with the models to provide information about what the climate might have been like in the past.

Combining climate models with results from proxies gives scientists a powerful tool to more accurately understand paleoclimate.

Why Is Paleoclimate Important and How Can It Help Us Understand the Future?

Studying paleoclimate is important for understanding Earth's past. It explains why the present-day Earth is the way it is, such as why certain animals and plants live where they do. Studying paleoclimate shows us how the Earth (and life on Earth) responds to change.

As you have seen, Earth's climate has changed a lot in the past, but these changes usually take many thousands of years. Right now, we are seeing climate change happening over just a few decades, making it difficult to know what will happen next. Therefore, it is also important to study paleoclimate to understand the future of our planet.

One of the most important things for scientists to understand is exactly how changes in greenhouses gases (like CO ₂) affect temperature. This is known as climate sensitivity. Paleoclimate information can be used to help scientists better understand climate sensitivity. This information can be used to improve climate models, so scientists can more accurately predict how current changes in greenhouse gases might impact future climate. Climate affects all life on Earth, including plants, animals and us-so, understanding our past will help us prepare for our future.

Funding

EA is funded by a Kone Foundation Grant (No. 202006876). AF is funded by a Leverhulme Research Project Grant (RPG-2019-365). AF, VL, and CW are funded on a joint UK-China Project administered by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/P013805/1) and the Natural Science Foundation of China Project (Nos. 41661134049, 41772026).

Glossary

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References

[1] ↑ Foster, G. L., Royer, D. L., and Lunt, D. J. 2017. Future climate forcing potentially without precedent in the last 420 million years. Nat. Commun. 8:14845. doi: 10.1038/ncomms14845

[2] ↑ Bintanja, R., and van de Wal, R. S. W. 2008. Global 3ma Temperature, Sea Level and Ice Volume Reconstructions. NOAA. Available online at: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/11933

[3] ↑ Nogherotto, R., Burgard, C., and Jones, C. 2022. What is causing our climate to change so quickly now? Front. Young Minds 10:668763. doi: 10.3389/frym.2022.668763

[4] ↑ Scotese, C. R. Plate Tectonic Maps and Continental Drift Animations, PALEOMAP Project. Available online at: www.scotese.com.

[5] ↑ Hodell, D. A. 2016. The smoking gun of the ice ages. Science 354:1235-6. doi: 10.1126/science.aal4111

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Understanding the Climate of Ancient Earth

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The Earth has been around for a long time. Earth's climate history is called its paleoclimate, where "paleo" means old or ancient. In this article, we explain how studying paleoclimate helps us understand how and why the Earth (and the life on it) evolved over time.

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If You've Ever Watched the News during a hurricane or Wintertime Nor'easter, you've probably noticed that big storms spin, over time as they travel. In the northern hemisphere, they spin counterclockwise. But if you are watching a storm in the southern hemisphere, you'd see it spinning clockwise. Why do storms spin in different directions depending on their location? And, why do they spin in the first place? A storm's rotation is due to something called the Coriolis Effect, which is a phenomenon that causes fluids like water and air to curve as they travel across or above Earth's Surface. Here's the basic idea. Earth is constantly spinning around its axis, from west to east. But because earth Is a sphere, and wider in the middle, points on the equator are actually spinning faster around the axis, than points near the poles. So imagine you were standing in Texas and had a magic paper airplane that could travel hundreds of miles. If you threw your airplane directly northward, you might think it would land straight north. Maybe somewhere in Nebraska, but Texas is actually spinning around Earth's axis faster than Nebraska is, because it's closer to the Equator. That means that the paper airplane is spinning faster as well, and when you throw it that Spinning momentum is conserved. So if you threw your paper airplane in a straight line toward the North, it would land somewhere to the right of Nebraska. Maybe in Delaware, so from your point of view in Texas the plane would have taken a curved path to the right. The opposite would happen in the Southern Hemisphere. An object traveling from the equator to the south would get deflected to the left. So what does this have to do with hurricane spinning? Well, at the center of every hurricane is an area of very low pressure. As a result, the high pressure air surrounding the center, or eye of a storm is constantly rushing toward the low-pressure void in the middle. but because of the coriolis effect, the air rushing toward the center is deflected off course. In the northern hemisphere. The volumes of air on all sides of the eye keep getting tugged slightly to the right. The air keeps trying to make its way to the middle, and keeps getting deflected, causing the entire system to spin in a counterclockwise direction. In the southern hemisphere, where the coriolis effect pulls air to the left, the opposite happens; storms spin around the eye in a clockwise manner.

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The Coriolis effect (video) | Clouds | Khan Academy

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If You've Ever Watched the News during a hurricane or Wintertime Nor'easter, you've probably noticed that big storms spin, over time as they travel. In the northern hemisphere, they spin counterclockwise. But if you are watching a storm in the southern hemisphere, you'd see it spinning clockwise.

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Activity on the Sun's surface creates a type of weather called space weather. The Sun is really far away-about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers)-from Earth. However, space weather can affect Earth and the rest of the solar system. At its worst, it can even damage satellites and cause electrical blackouts on Earth!

How can space weather travel all the way to Earth?

The Sun is always spewing gas and particles into space. This stream of particles is known as the solar wind. The gas and particles come from the Sun's hot outer atmosphere, called the corona. These particles from the corona are charged with electricity. The solar wind carries these particles toward Earth at up to a million miles per hour!

What protects us from space weather?

Earth has an area of magnetic force activity, called a magnetic field. It is also surrounded by a jacket of gases, called an atmosphere. Our magnetic field and atmosphere act like a superhero's shield, protecting us from the majority of the solar wind blast.

Most of the charged particles crash into Earth's shield and flow around it. The particles squish and flatten the side of the magnetic field that faces the Sun. The other side of the magnetic field stretches into a long, trailing tail.

Sometimes charged particles sneak past Earth's shield. When these particles hit the atmosphere, we are treated to glowing light shows known as auroras.

Can space weather be harmful?

Yes! Sometimes magnetic activity within the Sun causes intense solar storms. The solar wind gets much stronger during these storms. Strong solar winds can be dangerous.

During a solar storm, explosions called solar flares break out. Solar flares send tons of energy whizzing through space at the speed of light. Sometimes flares come with huge solar eruptions. These eruptions are called coronal mass ejections.

All of that extra radiation can damage the satellites we use for communications and navigation. It can disrupt power grids that provide our electricity. The radiation from solar storms can also be dangerous for astronauts in space.

Do we have any warnings of bad space weather?

Solar storms happen suddenly, and their effects can reach Earth within minutes. But scientists do make predictions about when solar storms are likely to occur and how strong they will be. You can check the space weather forecast just like you might check the weather forecast.

NASA and other agencies operate a collection of instruments that keep an eye on the Sun and space weather.

For example, NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) observes coronal mass ejections. Other spacecraft, like the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) R-series, monitor the Sun and detect solar storms and changes in the solar wind. They provide information that helps scientists to send alerts that can help prevent any damage.

Related Resources for Educators

Our World: The Sun, A Real Star
Launchpad: Aurora Lights: Why They Exist and What Causes Them?
Our World: Two Eyes on the Sun
Real World: Satellites and Solar Eruptions

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Activity on the Sun's surface creates a type of weather called space weather. The Sun is really far away-about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers)-from Earth. However, space weather can affect Earth and the rest of the solar system. At its worst, it can even damage satellites and cause electrical blackouts on Earth!