Before there were satellites to observe the clouds from above, scientists were only able to visually observe them from below. And now, scientists STILL use visual observations of clouds in research, for a fascinating but simple reason – if you want to be able to directly compare observations before and after the satellite era, you also have to observe them with the same methods before and after. So no matter what technology brings in the future, we will still need to LOOK at the clouds. As one of the scientists onboard previously wrote about, students on this cruise will be assisting scientist Dr. Sasha Chernokulsky in cloud observations, and they got some training on how collect data. We met in the Meteorology (“Met”) Lab, where the computer screens show the ship’s current location, satellite cloud imagery, and ceilometer data (i.e. how many meters high the cloud “ceiling” is). Students will work in shifts, day and night, every hour on the hour, observing the types and concentrations of clouds in the sky. Just like the olden days.
