Two-thirds of Earth is covered in clouds

Forget Earth as a pale blue marble, or perhaps a water planet, decades of satellite observations show Earth is actually dominated by clouds.

A new global cloud map based on nearly a decade of NASA satellite data have found that about 67 per cent of Earth's surface is covered by clouds at any given time.

NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) map shows an average of cloud observations collected between July 2002 and April 2015.

Cloud cover is especially dominant over the oceans where less than 10 per cent of the sky is completely cloud free at any one time. On average only 30 per cent of land surface is cloud free.

And there was me thinking that was just British weather :D

:)

British weather? It's very sunny today, blue skies and less than 5% cloud for -0�39'9"E, 51�27'56"N.

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Two-thirds of Earth is covered in clouds

A new global cloud map based on nearly a decade of NASA satellite data have found that about 67 per cent of Earth's surface is covered by clouds at any given time.

NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) map shows an average of cloud observations collected between July 2002 and April 2015.

Cloud cover is especially dominant over the oceans where less than 10 per cent of the sky is completely cloud free at any one time. On average only 30 per cent of land surface is cloud free.

Yes, with cross country flights over N. America this has been really noticeable over the past five years. Does anyone know anymore details about the cloud cover numbers, especially the trend?

From that data, in addition to May-June 2015 assuming they collected it, has there been an increase in cloud cover on this hemisphere from the first 5 years starting July 2002 to the cloud cover of the current past five years (5 years starting July 2011)?

It now seems cloudier than I remember the 90s or 80s to be. But maybe it's poor observation or tricks of the mind, or local changes only.