|John Gille: Searching for Patterns in the Clouds|| Picture
clouds floating high in the sky. As the air warms during the
day, the clouds grow higher and higher. It seems the clouds can
do just about anything they want to -- form any shape, reach any
height.| Image to right: John Gille turned a life-long
fascination with physics, chemistry and math into a career with
NASA. Credit: NASA Most clouds, however, eventually encounter a
ceiling, a subtle layer of atmosphere only four kilometers
thick. This thin layer, scientifically named the "tropopause
transition layer," caps the much thicker layer of denser
atmosphere in which we live. It lies just below a vast, almost
cloudless layer called the stratosphere. This tropopause
ceiling, most evident in the tropics, puts the lid on clouds
while allowing water vapor and ozone to be exchanged. How this
works is the mystery captivating the research interests of John
Gille, a physicist at the University of Colorado in Boulder and
the National Center for Atmospheric Resear