What are high altitude clouds?
1 Answer
Feb 7, 2017
Do you mean cirrus or noctilucent?
Explanation:
What we normally have at "high" altitudes are the cirrus type clouds (cirrus, cirrostratus and cirrocumulnous). These are ice crystal clouds forming above 6,000 m in the atmosphere. They are common.
Noctilucent clouds are much different. They are forming around 70,000 m in the atmosphere. The layer they form in is traditionally much more dry than the Sahara desert. However, due to rocket travel and high flying jets, that inject a lot of water vapour into the atmosphere, they sometimes form.
Since they are so high up they tend to reflect sunlight that is not visible from the surface of the Earth. In other words they glow.
