This lowered costs and facilitated the publication of translated editions. The 1956 edition was the first published in two volumes, separating text and plates. The 1939 edition modified the title to International Atlas of Clouds and Types of Skies.

, a member of the scientific committee that collaborated with the Meteorological Service of Catalonia, sponsored the whole publication. It was published in Catalan ( Atles Internacional dels Núvols i dels Estats del cel) besides the three International Meteorological Organization official languages (English, French and German) because Mr. The 1932 edition was titled International Atlas of Clouds and of States of the Sky.

International Cloud Atlas has been published in multiple editions since 1896, including 1911, 1932, 1939, 1956, 1975, 19. Singer's Wolkentafeln (Munich, 1892), Classificazione delle nubi by the Specola Vaticana (Rome, 1893), and the Rev. Weilbach's Nordeuropas Sky-former (Copenhagen, 1881), M. Other, similar works published prior to this were M. Abercromby and Hildebrandsson developed a new classification of clouds that was published in an earlier atlas, the 1890 Cloud Atlas by Hugo Hildebrand Hildebrandsson, Wladimir Köppen, and Georg von Neumayer. The first edition was inspired in part by the observation of the English meteorologist Ralph Abercromby that clouds were of the same general kinds everywhere in the world. Consequently, the Clouds Commission was unable to obtain suitable color photographs of all the cloud types, and they selected paintings to use as substitutes. At the time, color photography was new, complicated, and expensive. A cirrus cloud was the first type of cloud illustrated, from a color photograph.

Most of the plates were color photographs, but also some paintings. The first edition featured printed color plates, rather than hand-colored plates. These were selected by the Clouds Commission, which also included Julius von Hann, Henrik Mohn, and Abbott Lawrence Rotch. Consequently, it had separate title pages in each language and is known also by its alternate titles Atlas international des nuages and Internationaler Wolkenatlas. It consists of color plates of clouds, and text in English, French, and German. Publication of the first edition was arranged by Hugo Hildebrand Hildebrandsson, Albert Riggenbach, and Léon Teisserenc de Bort, members of the Clouds Commission of the International Meteorological Committee aka International Meteorological Organization (now the World Meteorological Organization). Painting of stratus clouds from the 1896 edition

Cloud atlas book