The weather of the Blue Marble

Abstract

The Blue Marble is one of the most famous photos of the Earth. It was captured on 10 7th December 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew as they were travelling toward the moon, being 11 one of the first images to show the entire Earth from the outer space. The picture not only 12 showed the beauty of our world but also illustrated through the clouds the great diversity of 13 meteorological structures that occur on the Earth on any given day. Here I describe the 14 different cloud arrangements and the atmospheric dynamics visible in the image, from 15 tropical convection to polar clouds including both tropical and extratropical cyclones, 16 showing the atmospheric richness of our world.