Sky Temperature at NearSys Station, 27 August 2017

Smoke from forest fires has poured back into the Treasure Valley. This got me to wondering if this will change the temperature of the sky above me. It can certainly change the appearance of the sky. Then I got to wondering if cloud height might be determined by monitoring the temperature of the ground and the sky.

So for the next several weeks, I'll photograph the sky (and any clouds and their height) and get a thermal image. This should be done at the same time, I would think. However, the sun's position changes from day to day. So perhaps this measurement should be done when the sun is at the same elevation.

Here's my first attempt to gather this data. Let's see where it goes.

Blue skies overhead and not a cloud in the sky.

The temperature overhead was -21 degrees. That's the temperature at an altitude of 22,500 feet. Is this a significant measurement? Only time will tell.