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Announcer: This is
a Getty podcast.

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[Theme music begins]

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Hi, I’m Lilit Sadoyan, the
host of OMMM, Our Museum

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Mindfulness Meditation podcast,
Getty’s first video podcast.

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Welcome to this Deeper Dive,
where we explore the themes

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of our weekly episodes
with experts in everything

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from paintings conservation
to the history of sleep.

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Marek Slipski: Clouds are
ubiquitous across planetary

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atmospheres, whether it’s,
Earth, Mars’ thin

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atmosphere, Venus’ thick
atmosphere, or the giant

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planets like Jupiter and Saturn.

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You see clouds everywhere.

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Sadoyan: This week, we
did a thought clouds

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meditation inspired by
Simon Denis’ Study of Clouds

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with a Sunset near Rome.

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To learn more about clouds
and the way they capture our

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imaginations, I spoke with
Marek Slipski, a scientist at

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the Jet Propulsion Laboratories
in Pasadena, who researches

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clouds and climate on Mars.

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Now let’s dive in.

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[On video call]

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Hi, Marek.

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Thank you so much
for joining us today.

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Slipski: Yeah,
thanks for having me.

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Really excited to be here.

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Sadoyan: Thank you.

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So this week we focused on
a thought-clouds meditation

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inspired by a cloud painting
by Simon Denis, and we are

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talking today about the
significance of clouds both

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physically and emotionally.

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Personally, I have been looking
up at the clouds for a very

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long time, since childhood.

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We are all just so enamored
by clouds, and I’m curious to

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hear from you why you think
clouds are so appealing.

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Slipski: Yeah, it’s a 
great question.

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I don’t have the one answer
to that, but, they’re something

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we see every day, right?

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And I think we’ve all had
these experiences as kids

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and spending time outside
watching the clouds overhead.

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But it—they’re not
static there, right?

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They move across the sky.

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What’s there one day isn’t
there the next, but there

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might be something different.

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So they move in real time.

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But they’re also ephemeral.

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They come and go.

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Uh, and there’s
something that’s easy to

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connect with there and, kind
of, is a constant but is also

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highly variable that, that
makes them really interesting.

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Sadoyan: Mm-hmm.

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And like you said,
they’re ephemeral.

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They’re constantly changing.

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They also can affect
our mood, right?

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So what do you think
about the emotional

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significance of clouds?

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Slipski: Yeah.

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They, you know, I think you
can imagine a storm cloud

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and the kind of cartoon
image of a rain

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cloud following somebody.

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So there’s obviously that,
like, stereotypical,

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kind of connection, rainy day
type, sadness association.

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But also the being outside
on a sunny day with

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smaller clouds of different
shapes passing overhead and

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that being, like, a very
relaxing zen-type moment.

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Um, I think there’s also maybe
a subconscious connection with

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what we all read about with
respect to climate change.

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And even if we’re all not
intimately familiar with the,

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kind of the physical connections
of clouds with climate change,

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we see the weather changing
every day, and we notice

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things like that over time.

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And so for some, maybe
that’s something that...

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it’s not easy to express,
but it’s clearly there.

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Sadoyan: So what is the
connection between clouds

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and climate change, or
what can clouds tell us

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about climate change?

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Slipski: Clouds play a really
important role in the climate.

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They have—they can have two
sort of competing effects:

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they both reflect incoming
solar radiation, so they

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reflect sunlight, which acts
to cool the atmosphere below.

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But they also absorb and
emit in the infrared.

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They can have that sort
of greenhouse effect

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and warm the atmosphere.

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And so the net effect is
dependent on sort of the

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details, the very small details
of the properties of the

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cloud, how big or small the
droplets are, the size and

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shape of the clouds, right?

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We know that things can take
up large areas and also

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be very vertically extended.

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And that might have a quite
a different impact than sort

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of thin cirrus-type clouds.

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And a lot of scientists
are really focused on this.

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When we run global
climate models

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to understand how the climate
is changing, clouds can be

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a big source of uncertainty,
not just because they have

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this competing effect, but
they show up in different

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places at different times.

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If you look at images of
Earth from space, you’ll see

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that day-to-day variability.

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And, over time, that
leads to uncertainty in the

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state of the atmosphere.

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Sadoyan: And as an atmospheric
scientist, I know you care a

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lot about clouds in your role.

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How did you come
to study clouds?

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Is this something that you
were interested in from

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childhood, or do you have
any early memories of clouds?

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Slipski: I do have those, uh,
canonical memories of watching

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the clouds pass overhead,
but I actually never really

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intended to study clouds.

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I’ve always been
interested in planets.

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And I am particularly
focused on Mars.

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I’ve always been interested
in the question of, is

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there life out there?

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And, and Mars is one of these
places that we can kind of

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scratch the surface of and
try to test whether or not

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there is life elsewhere.

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And I’ve come at this
from the sort of

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habitability side of things.

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So Mars today, the atmosphere
is very cold and thin, and

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you can’t have liquid
water on the surface.

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But we know from the
surface that there used

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to be liquid water.

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So that atmosphere four
billion years ago was warmer,

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thicker, and something
happened to change that.

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And so I’ve spent a lot of
time focused on the

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upper atmosphere of Mars above
where you see any clouds,

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but where you can see the
sun interact with particles

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in the upper atmosphere and
drive them away into space.

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And over time, over billions
of years, uh, that atmosphere

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has been stripped away.

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But as I learned about the
upper atmosphere of Mars,

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and I’ve sort of come down
to lower levels and not

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too far below that, there are
high-altitude clouds on Mars.

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We have high-altitude clouds
on Earth, noctilucent

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clouds, they’re called, polar
mesospheric clouds, where

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at nighttime, you can see
these because of the angle

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of the sun, and they’re—
they actually—noctilucent

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means night-shining clouds.

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You may have seen
these outside.

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But we see similar things
on Mars, uh, and I’ve been

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studying those a lot recently.

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Sadoyan: Sounds so beautiful.

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So you’re studying
clouds on Mars.

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How are these clouds different
from the clouds on Earth?

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Slipski: Yes.

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On Earth, all the clouds
are water droplets.

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Uh, right, water vapor in
the atmosphere condenses

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usually onto a seed particle,
a condensation nuclei, 

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and you get liquid water in
the atmosphere, and that’s

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obviously what rain is.

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There are some clouds
that have ice mixed in

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them as well on Earth.

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But on Mars, the atmosphere is
very cold and it’s very thin.

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And so just like on the surface
of Mars, you can’t have liquid

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water, you don’t get liquid
water in the atmosphere.

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That water vapor in the
atmosphere, uh, freezes

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directly into ice.

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So you have a lot of water
ice clouds on Mars, especially

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over topographical features
like the volcanoes.

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But interestingly, you also
find CO2—carbon dioxide—ice

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clouds, dry ice clouds.

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Um, and carbon dioxide
is the main constituent

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of Mars’ atmosphere.

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It’s about 95% CO2.

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So the main constituent is
actually freezing out because

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in certain places and at certain
times, it gets really cold.

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Sadoyan: So can what we’re
learning about clouds on

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Mars reflect what we know
about Earth and vice versa?

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Slipski: Absolutely.

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I think at a high level, 
there are, you know, only

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a few atmospheres that we
can—that we can really study

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and learn about clouds, which
isn’t to say that clouds

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don’t form on other planets.

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Clouds are ubiquitous, 
across planetary atmospheres,

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whether it’s, Earth, uh,
Mars’ thin atmosphere, Venus’

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thick atmosphere, or the giant
planets like Jupiter and Saturn.

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You see clouds everywhere.

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But these questions of the small
scale of how different molecules

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condense or freeze and, uh,
sort of the environments they

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need for that to happen, are
fundamental physical questions.

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So on Mars in particular,
we’re trying to learn a lot more

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about how these ices form, how
you go from water vapor directly

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into ice, and how the–how the
seed particles that they form on

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matter and shape that process.

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For instance, these high
altitude clouds, we’re not

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sure whether the particles
they’re forming on are

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dust from the surface.

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Mars has these incredible dust
storms sometimes completely

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enveloping the planet.

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But we’re not sure if those
dust particles make it up to

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high altitudes where water
vapor can freeze or if it’s

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meteor—basically particles
from meteors that burn up in

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the atmosphere where you get
individual small particles,

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and maybe those are what
these clouds are forming on.

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It’s still an open question.

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Sadoyan: Well, we’ve talked
about cloud watching here

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on Earth and looking at
clouds from images in space.

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Do you have any suggestions
for our listeners who

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would love to enter this
meditative state with clouds?

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Slipski: I sure do!
[laughs]

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So I help lead a 
project called

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Cloud Spotting on Mars.

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Um, this is a citizen science
project where we use real NASA

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data that’s come
from the Mars Reconnaissance

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Orbiter, which has been
at Mars for 20 years now.

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I work with an instrument called
the Mars Climate Sounder, and we

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can identify clouds in our data.

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We’re an infrared instrument,
so the data we show volunteers

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aren’t images of clouds but
the clouds have a particular

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shape to them where you can
find them and mark them.

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And we use that data to kind
of look at the distribution

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of clouds and try to figure
out what they’re made of.

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Um, it’s really been
a lot of fun to do a

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citizen science project.

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This is my first
foray into this.

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And we’ve had a lot of great
conversations with participants

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in our project, and a lot have
commented that they use it

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to enter a sort of meditative
state, something that’s

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very different from their normal
day-to-day, where they could log

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in, start to find these clouds,
and enter a kind of flow state

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and, and engage with science.

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This is, this is data
that we use in research.

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Sadoyan: What a wonderful way to
contribute to science and relax.

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Well, thank you so much,
Merrick, for joining us on

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the OMMM podcast this week.

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Slipski: Thank you!

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[Theme music plays]

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Sadoyan: To find the related
meditation and see images,

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transcripts, and additional
resources, visit our website

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00:12:49,539 --> 00:12:51,899
at getty dot edu slash ommm.

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That’s O-M-M-M.