why do clouds look like they’re sitting on a spherical surface?

Question

The big fluffy clouds, like from The Simpsons opening credits… Why, in real life, do they look like big puffy clouds sitting on a solid, smooth, invisible surface?

In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

As air rises, it cools down and eventually reaches a point where it has 100% humidity, at which point the water vapor in the air condenses. It is above this point that you can see the water vapor forming a cloud, but there is more water underneath that cloud, it’s just not condensed. So you could imagine a large vertical cloud, the bottom half of which is invisible to us.