• Question: why are clouds white?

    Asked by scienceismylife to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 26 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Clouds are mostly droplets of water, which are very good at scattering light but don’t absorb much. So, they let through light of all wavelengths with about equal proportion (white light). Clouds with lots of water droplets can look grey from below, but are white from above.

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Yup.

    • Photo: Tianfu Yao

      Tianfu Yao answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Agree with Tom.

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