Cirrus clouds are thin, wispy high-altitude clouds composed of ice crystals that originate from the freezing of supercooled water droplets. Cirrus clouds generally occur in fair weather and point in the direction of air movement at their elevation.

The broadest classification of life splits all organisms into three groups called domains. The three domains of life are bacteria, archaea and eukaryota.

In the mesosphere, temperature again drops as altitude increases until the coldest point in the Earth's atmosphere, the mesopause, is reached where temperatures fall to −225 °F (−143 °C).

The water (hydrologic) cycle describes the movement of water from Earth through the atmosphere and back to Earth. The cycle starts when water evaporates into a gas from bodies of water like rivers, lakes and oceans or transpirates from the leaves of plants.