Clouds are so significant yet can seem like hardly anything at all. A typical cumulus cloud might weigh more than one million pounds, but a plane flies right through it. Clouds are made of water and or ice, come in more than a dozen types, and range in altitude from ground level to 280,000 feet high in Earth’s atmosphere. They water our lands, are part of the fury of hurricanes, both warm and cool the planet, and at times, interfere with completing important observations or tasks.

Cloud research is an essential part of NASA’s Earth science with many past, present, and future missions devoted to understanding how they form and function, and their role in our planet’s climate health. NASA gather cloud data with ground, airborne, and satellite instruments analyzing their dynamics, properties, and lifecycle. Scientists study how clouds factor into weather, precipitation and severe storms, air quality and pollution, wildfire detection, climate change, and many more topics.