I accept the figures in the article, but am bound to say, those clouds don’t LOOK to be 50 miles high. They look to be at about 10,000 feet in the photos. Very curious. Thanks for posting. Does anyone else have an opinion?
Note it does NOT say the clouds are 50 miles up. It says “But solar-minimum conditions, with few if any sunspots, are causing cooling in the extreme upper atmosphere 50 miles high where the lowest atmospheric temperatures are recorded, approaching -150 F. That altitude is above 99.999% of the air in the atmosphere.”
So somehow the solar minimum is causing upper atmosphere cooling which is affecting clouds down below. These appear to be cirrus clouds which are made of ice crystals. Cirrus clouds can form at any altitude between 16,500 ft and 45,000 ft.