Why is the sky blue and the clouds are white

Question

Why is the sky blue and the clouds are white

Answer 1

Oh great! Please don't get started on this question that has been asked repeatedly, Why is the sky blue? Don't give them ideas and don't make it so people now start asking why are the clouds white. If people start asking, Why are the clouds white? It will be your fault.

Why don't you search it for yourself, instead of asking others to do it for you?  Research helps improve your search skills and good reasearch skills are good for school, college or carrers and if you are called to jury duty.

Answer 2

First; why is the sky blue?

I think most people know that sunlight is made up of light of several different wavelengths, and can be split up into the colours of the rainbow. Blue light has the shorter wavelength, and red the longest wavelength.

When sunlight hits the molecules in the atmosphere, the light is absorbed; causing the molecules vibrate and and give off, or 're-emit' the light. Because the molecules vibrate in all directions, the light is emitted in all directions (called 'scattering'). Because the blue wavelength is shorter and more energetic, it reacts much more with the air molecules than the red and yellow wavelengths; which tend to pass straight through, or get absorbed by the atmosphere (which warms the air and gives rise to the world's climate).

Because the blue radiation is re-emitted from the air molecules in all directions, and it also gets 'bounced around' from molecule to molecules in this way, it seems to us looking from the ground that the blue light is coming from everywhere; hence the sky seems blue. And of course; we are looking upwards through several kilometres of air; so there are plenty of molecules to scatter the blue light.

BTW: The sky isn't blue because of a reflection of the sea. its the other way round. As well as reflecting the blue from the sky at the surface, sea water also scatters the blue light. The blue colour of the sea is a little more complicated, because as well as the water molecules scattering the blue light, the water absorbs more of the red and yellow wavelengths, leaving the blue part of the spectrum, as well as part of the green (which is why deep water can appear bluish-green).

This scattering effect is even stronger with ice; which results in the intense blue colour we see if we look down a crevasse in a glacier, or down a hole in the snow made by a ski stock.

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Now; why are clouds white?

Rayleigh scattering, described above, only happens when the particles (air molecules) are a lot smaller than the wavelength of sunlight.  When the particles are much larger than the wavelength of light, a different effect happens, called Mie scattering.  In this case, the light is re-emitted at the same wavelength that strikes the particles (in this case, a mix of all the wavelengths of white light).  Hence the clouds appear white.  They also appear white because a lot of the light is reflected off the clouds as well, rather than being scattered.

Answer 3

the sky is blue cuz its a reflection of earths oceans