As a scholar researching clouds, I have dedicated much of my academic career to understanding the complex dynamics of the sky. Beyond the daily weather forecasts and the fleeting images of rainclouds, there lies a deeper logic governing cloud movements, their distributions, densities, and their crucial roles in regulating temperatures and orchestrating heat flows across our planet.
Recently, I have observed an unsettling phenomenon: skies that appear hollowed out, clouds that seem to have lost their substance. I refer to them as “ghost clouds.” These wispy formations drift aimlessly, detached from the systems that once provided them coherence. They are too thin to reflect sunlight, too fragmented to produce rain, and too sluggish to stir up wind, presenting the illusion of clouds without their essential functions.
Clouds are often perceived as ephemeral, yet their significance extends far beyond their physical presence. In dry regions like Western Australia, where I reside, rain-bringing clouds are eagerly anticipated. However, the winter storms that once brought vital rain to the southwest are now being pushed southward, releasing their precious cargo into the oceans. Consequently, more days pass under a relentless blue sky—beautiful, yet brutal in its emptiness.
The Global Shift in Cloud Patterns
Globally, cloud patterns are undergoing concerning transformations. Scientists have discovered that the Earth’s highly reflective cloud cover is steadily diminishing. With less heat being reflected, the planet is now trapping more warmth than anticipated.
“The belts of shiny white clouds we need most are declining between 1.5 and 3% per decade,” experts warn.
These clouds, particularly effective at reflecting sunlight back into space, are crucial in sunny regions near the equator. In contrast, broken grey clouds reflect less heat, and polar clouds have less light to reflect due to their location.
Clouds are often relegated to the background in discussions about climate action. However, this is a significant oversight. Clouds are not mere décor; they are dynamic, distributed, and profoundly consequential infrastructure capable of cooling the planet and shaping the rainfall patterns that sustain life below. These masses of tiny water droplets or ice crystals represent climate protection accessible to all, irrespective of national boundaries, wealth, or politics.
The Quiet Crisis Above Us
The gradual disappearance of clouds does not capture headlines like floods or wildfires. Their absence is quiet, cumulative, and deeply troubling. While clouds are not vanishing entirely, their most reflective forms are declining in critical areas.
“On average, clouds cover two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, clustering over the oceans. Of all solar radiation reflected back to space, clouds are responsible for about 70%,” according to climate researchers.
Clouds mediate extremes, soften sunlight, transport moisture, and create invisible feedback loops that sustain a stable climate. If clouds become rarer or disappear, it is not just a loss to the climate system but also to our perception of the world. Unlike glaciers, species, or coral reefs, whose losses leave visible traces, the reduction in cloud cover leaves an emptiness that is difficult to articulate and even harder to mourn.
Reading the Clouds: A Cultural and Scientific Imperative
For generations, Australia’s First Nations have read the clouds and sky, interpreting their forms to guide seasonal activities. The Emu in the Sky (Gugurmin in Wiradjuri) is visible in the Milky Way’s dark dust. When the emu figure is high in the night sky, it signals the right time to gather emu eggs.
However, the skies are changing more rapidly than our systems of understanding can adapt. One solution is to reframe how we perceive weather phenomena like clouds. As researchers in Japan have observed, weather is a type of public good—a “weather commons.” By viewing clouds not as remnants of an unchanging past but as invitations to imagine new futures for our planet, we might begin to learn how to live more wisely and attentively with the sky.
This could involve teaching people how to read the clouds again—to notice their presence, their changes, and their disappearances. We can learn to differentiate between clouds that cool and those that drift, decorative but functionally inert. Our natural affinity for clouds makes them ideal for engaging citizens in environmental awareness.
Implications and Forward-Looking Analysis
For millennia, humans have treated weather as something beyond our control, something that happens to us. However, our impact on Earth has grown to the extent that we are now influencing the weather. Deforestation, which reduces rain production, and the emission of billions of tonnes of fossil carbon into the atmosphere are shaping the climate. What we do below affects what happens above.
We are living through a brief window in which every change will have long-term consequences. If emissions continue unchecked, the additional heating could last for millennia. I propose cloud literacy not as a solution, but as a means to urgently draw our attention to the very real changes occurring around us.
We must transition from reaction to atmospheric co-design—not as a technical fix, but as a civic, collective, and imaginative responsibility.
Professor Christian Jakob provided feedback and contributed to this article, while Dr. Jo Pollitt and Professor Helena Grehan offered comments and edits. This article is republished from The Conversation. It was written by Rumen Rachev, Edith Cowan University.
Rumen Rachev receives funding from Edith Cowan University (ECU) through the Vice-Chancellor’s PhD Scholarship, under the project Staging Weather led by Dr. Jo Pollitt. He is also a Higher Degree by Research (HDR) member of the Centre for People, Place, and Planet (CPPP) at ECU.
