cloud

Formation of Clouds

Clouds are formed when air containing water vapor is cooled below a critical temperature called the dew point and the resulting moisture condenses into droplets on microscopic dust particles (condensation nuclei) in the atmosphere. The air is normally cooled by expansion during its upward movement. Upward flow of air in the atmosphere may be caused by convection resulting from intense solar heating of the ground; by a cold wedge of air (cold front) near the ground causing a mass of warm air to be forced aloft; or by a mountain range at an angle to the wind. Clouds are occasionally produced by a reduction of pressure aloft or by the mixing of warmer and cooler air currents.

Classification of Clouds

A classification of cloud forms was first made (1801) by French naturalist Jean Lamarck. In 1803, Luke Howard, an English scientist, devised a classification that was adopted by the International Meteorological Commission (1929), designating three primary cloud types, cirrus, cumulus, and stratus, and their compound forms, which are still used today in modified form. Today's classification has four main divisions: high clouds, 20,000 to 40,000 ft (6,100–12,200 m); intermediate clouds, 6,500 to 20,000 ft (1,980–6,100 m); low clouds, near ground level to 6,500 ft (1,980 m); and clouds with vertical development, 1,600 ft to over 20,000 ft (490–6,100 m).

High cloud forms include cirrus, detached clouds of delicate and fibrous appearance, generally white in color, often resembling tufts or featherlike plumes, and composed entirely of ice crystals; cirrocumulus (mackerel sky), composed of small white flakes or very small globular masses, arranged in groups, lines, or ripples; and cirrostratus, a thin whitish veil, sometimes giving the entire sky a milky appearance, which does not blur the outline of the sun or moon but frequently produces a halo.

Intermediate clouds include altocumulus, patchy layer of flattened globular masses arranged in groups, lines, or waves, with individual clouds sometimes so close together that their edges join; and altostratus, resembling thick cirrostratus without halo phenomena, like a gray veil, through which the sun or the moon shows vaguely or is sometimes completely hidden.

Low clouds include stratocumulus, a cloud layer or patches composed of fairly large globular masses or flakes, soft and gray with darker parts, arranged in groups, lines, or rolls, often with the rolls so close together that their edges join; stratus, a uniform layer resembling fog but not resting on the ground; and nimbostratus, a nearly uniform, dark grey layer, amorphous in character and usually producing continuous rain or snow.

Clouds having vertical development include cumulus, a thick, detached cloud, generally associated with fair weather, usually with a horizontal base and a dome-shaped upper surface that frequently resembles a head of cauliflower and shows strong contrasts of light and shadow when the sun illuminates it from the side, and cumulonimbus, the thunderstorm cloud, heavy masses of great vertical development whose summits rise in the form of mountains or towers, the upper parts having a fibrous texture, often spreading out in the shape of an anvil, and sometimes reaching the stratosphere. Cumulonimbus generally produces showers of rain, snow, hailstorms, or thunderstorms.

Climatic Influence of Clouds

Cloudiness (or proportion of the sky covered by any form of cloud), measured in tenths, is one of the elements of climate. The cloudiness of the United States averages somewhat less than 50% (i.e., the country receives somewhat more than 50% of the possible sunshine); the Great Lakes region and the coast of Washington and Oregon have the greatest cloudiness (60%–70%), and the SW United States—Arizona and adjacent areas—are the least cloudy (10%–30%). Clouds have become an important focus in the study of global warming or cooling, including how the increase or decrease in cloud cover can effect the amount of radiation reflected from the earth back into space.

Bibliography

See R. S. Scorer, Clouds of the World (1972); R. Houze, Cloud Dynamics (1991).

Stratocumulus perlucidus clouds, as seen from a plane window.

A cloud is a visible mass of condensed droplets, frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body, such as a moon. (Clouds can also occur as masses of material in interstellar space, where they are called interstellar clouds and nebulae.) The branch of meteorology in which clouds are studied is nephology.

On Earth the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths: they thus appear white, at least from the top. Cloud droplets tend to scatter light efficiently, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases with depth into the cloud, hence the gray or even sometimes dark appearance of the clouds at their base. Thin clouds may appear to have acquired the color of their environment or background, and clouds illuminated by non-white light, such as during sunrise or sunset, may be colored accordingly. In the near-infrared range, clouds would appear darker because the water that constitutes the cloud droplets strongly absorbs solar radiation at those wavelengths.

Clouds can cast shadows

Clouds and cloud bow above Pacific

Cloud formation and properties

Global scheme of cloud optical thickness

1. The air is cooled below its saturation point. This happens when the air comes into contact with a cold surface or a surface that is cooling by radiation or the air is cooled by adiabatic expansion (rising). This can happen:

• along warm and cold fronts (frontal lift)
• where air flows up the side of a mountain and cools as it rises higher into the atmosphere (orographic lift)
• by the convection caused by the warming of a surface by insolation (diurnal heating)
• when warm air blows over a colder surface such as a cool body of water.

2. Clouds can be formed when two air masses below saturation point mix. Examples are: our breath on a cold day, aircraft contrails and Arctic sea smoke.

3. The air stays the same temperature but absorbs more water vapor into it until it reaches saturation point.

The water in a typical cloud can have a mass of up to several million tonnes. The volume of a cloud is correspondingly high and the net density of the relatively warm air holding the droplets is low enough that air currents below and within the cloud are capable of keeping it suspended. Conditions inside a cloud are not static: water droplets are constantly forming and re-evaporating. A typical cloud droplet has a radius on the order of 1 x 10^-5 m and a terminal velocity of about 1-3 cm/s. This gives these droplets plenty of time to re-evaporate as they fall into the warmer air beneath the cloud.

Cumulonimbus cloud

Most water droplets are formed when water vapor condenses around a condensation nucleus, a tiny particle of smoke, dust, ash or salt. In supersaturated conditions, water droplets may act as condensation nuclei.

The growth of water droplets around these nuclei in supersaturated conditions is given by the Mason equation.

Water droplets large enough to fall to the ground are produced in two ways. The most important means is through the Bergeron Process, theorized by Tor Bergeron, in which supercooled water droplets and ice crystals in a cloud interact to produce the rapid growth of ice crystals; these crystals precipitate from the cloud and melt as they fall. This process typically takes place in clouds with tops cooler than -15 °C. The second most important process is the collision and wake capture process, occurring in clouds with warmer tops, in which the collision of rising and falling water droplets produces larger and larger droplets, which are eventually heavy enough to overcome air currents in the cloud and the updraft beneath it and fall as rain. As a droplet falls through the smaller droplets which surround it, it produces a "wake" which draws some of the smaller droplets into collisions, perpetuating the process. This method of raindrop production is the primary mechanism in low stratiform clouds and small cumulus clouds in trade winds and tropical regions and produces raindrops of several millimeters diameter.

This wave cloud pattern formed off of the Île Amsterdam in the far southern Indian Ocean

The actual form of cloud created depends on the strength of the uplift and on air stability. In unstable conditions convection dominates, creating vertically developed clouds. Stable air produces horizontally homogeneous clouds. Frontal uplift creates various cloud forms depending on the composition of the front (ana-type or kata-type warm or cold front). Orographic uplift also creates variable cloud forms depending on air stability, although cap cloud and wave clouds are specific to orographic clouds.

"Hot ice" and "ice memory" in cloud formation

In addition to being the colloquial term sometimes used to describe dry ice, "hot ice" is the name given to a surprising phenomenon in which water can be turned into ice at room temperature by supplying an electric field of the order of one million volts per meter.^[1] The effect of such electric fields has been suggested as an explanation of cloud formation. This theory is highly controversial and is not widely accepted as the mechanism of cloud formation. The first time cloud ice forms around a clay particle, it requires a temperature of -10 °C, but subsequent freezing around the same clay particle requires a temperature of just -5 °C, suggesting some kind of "ice memory".^[2]

Cloud classification

Main article: List of cloud types

Cloud classification by altitude of occurrence

Clouds are divided into two general categories: layered and convective. These are named stratus clouds (or stratiform, the Latin stratus means "layer") and cumulus clouds (or cumuliform; cumulus means "piled up"). These two cloud types are divided into four more groups that distinguish the cloud's altitude. Clouds are classified by the cloud base height, not the cloud top. This system was proposed by Luke Howard in 1802 in a presentation to the Askesian Society.

High clouds (Family A)

Cirrus Clouds over Golden Gate Bridge

These generally form above  feet ( m), in the cold region of the troposphere. In Polar regions, they may form as low as  ft ( m); they are denoted by the prefix cirro- or cirrus. At this altitude, water frequently freezes so clouds are composed of ice crystals. The clouds tend to be wispy and are often transparent.

Clouds in Family A include:

• Cirrus (CI)
• Cirrus uncinus
• Cirrus Kelvin-Helmholtz Colombia
• Cirrostratus (Cs)
• Cirrocumulus (Cc)
• Pileus
• Contrail, a long thin cloud which develops as the result of the passage of an aircraft at high altitudes.

Middle clouds (Family B)

Altocumulus mackerel sky

These develop between 6,500 and 20,000 feet (between 2,000 and 5,000 m) and are denoted by the prefix alto-. They are made of water droplets and are frequently supercooled.

Clouds in Family B include:

• Altostratus (As)
• Altostratus undulatus
• Altocumulus (Ac)
• Altocumulus undulatus
• Altocumulus mackerel sky
• Altocumulus castellanus
• Altocumulus lenticularis

Low clouds (Family C)

Low clouds

These are found up to 6,500 feet (2,000 m) and include the stratus (dense and grey). When stratus clouds contact the ground, they are called fog.

Clouds in Family C include:

• Stratus (St)
• Nimbostratus (Ns)
• Cumulus humilis (Cu)
• Cumulus mediocris (Cu)
• Stratocumulus (Sc)

Vertical clouds (Family D)

A typical anvil shaped Cumulonimbus incus

These clouds can have strong up-currents, rise far above their bases and form at many heights.

Clouds in Family D include:

• Cumulonimbus (associated with heavy precipitation and thunderstorms) (Cb)
• Cumulonimbus incus
• Cumulonimbus calvus
• Cumulonimbus with mammatus
• Cumulus congestus
• Pyrocumulus

Mammatus cloud formations

Other clouds

A few clouds can be found above the troposphere; these include noctilucent and polar stratospheric clouds (or nacreous clouds), which occur in the mesosphere and stratosphere respectively.

Cloud fields

A cloud field is simply a group of clouds but sometimes cloud fields can take on certain shapes that have their own characteristics and are specially classified. Stratocumulus clouds can often be found in the following forms:

• Open cell, which resembles a honeycomb, with clouds around the edges and clear, open space in the middle.
• Closed cell, which is cloudy in the center and clear on the edges, similar to a filled honeycomb.
• Actinoform, which resembles a leaf or a spoked wheel.

Colors

A cloud in a gradient blue sky.

An example of various cloud colors

Colourful cloud formation

Iridescent clouds

Iridescent clouds

Rain bearing clouds

Rain clouds over the North Sea taken from the coast of Herne Bay, Kent

The color of a cloud tells much about what is going on inside the cloud. Clouds form when relatively warm air containing water vapor is lighter than its surrounding air and this causes it to rise. As it rises it cools and the vapor condenses out of the air as micro-droplets. These tiny particles of water are relatively densely packed and sunlight cannot penetrate far into the cloud before it is reflected out, giving a cloud its characteristic white color. As a cloud matures, the droplets may combine to produce larger droplets, which may combine to form droplets large enough to fall as rain. In this process of accumulation, the space between droplets becomes larger and larger, permitting light to penetrate much farther into the cloud. If the cloud is sufficiently large and the droplets within are spaced far enough apart, it may be that a percentage of the light which enters the cloud is not reflected back out before it is absorbed (Think of how much farther one can see in a heavy rain as opposed to how far one can see in a heavy fog). This process of reflection/absorption is what leads to the range of cloud color from white through grey through black. For the same reason, the undersides of large clouds and heavy overcasts appear various degrees of grey; little light is being reflected or transmitted back to the observer.

Other colours occur naturally in clouds. Bluish-grey is the result of light scattering within the cloud. In the visible spectrum, blue and green are at the short end of light's visible wavelengths, while red and yellow are at the long end. The short rays are more easily scattered by water droplets, and the long rays are more likely to be absorbed. The bluish color is evidence that such scattering is being produced by rain-sized droplets in the cloud.

A greenish tinge to a cloud is produced when sunlight is scattered by ice. A cumulonimbus cloud which shows green is a pretty sure sign of imminent heavy rain, hail, strong winds and possible tornadoes.

Yellowish clouds are rare but may occur in the late spring through early fall months during forest fire season. The yellow color is due to the presence of smoke.

Red, orange and pink clouds occur almost entirely at sunrise/sunset and are the result of the scattering of sunlight by the atmosphere. The clouds are not that color; they are reflecting the long (and unscattered) rays of sunlight which are predominant at those hours. The effect is much the same as if one were to shine a red spotlight on a white sheet. In combination with large, mature thunderheads this can produce blood-red clouds. The evening before the Edmonton, Alberta tornado in 1987, Edmontonians observed such clouds — deep black on their dark side and intense red on their sunward side. In this case the adage "red sky at night, sailor's delight" was wrong.

Global dimming

The recently recognized phenomenon of global dimming is thought to be caused by changes to the reflectivity of clouds due to the increased presence of aerosols and other particulates in the atmosphere.

Global brightening

New research From Dimming to Brightening: Decadal Changes in Solar Radiation at Earth's Surface by Martin Wild et al. (Science 6 May 2005; 308: 847-850) indicates global brightening trend.

Global brightening is caused by decreased amounts of particulate matter in the atmosphere. With less particulate matter there is less surface area for condensation to occur. Since there's less condensation in the atmosphere and increased evaporation caused by increasing amounts of sunlight striking the water's surface there is more moisture, causing fewer but thicker clouds.

Clouds on other planets

Main article: Extraterrestrial_atmospheres

Within our solar system, any planet or moon with an atmosphere also has clouds. Venus' clouds are composed entirely of sulfuric acid droplets. Mars has high, thin clouds of water ice. Both Jupiter and Saturn have an outer cloud deck composed of ammonia clouds, an intermediate deck of ammonium hydrosulfide clouds and an inner deck of water clouds. Uranus and Neptune have atmospheres dominated by methane clouds.

Saturn's moon Titan has clouds which are believed to be composed largely of droplets of liquid methane. The Cassini-Huygens Saturn mission has uncovered evidence of a fluid cycle on Titan, including lakes near the poles and fluvial channels on the surface of the moon.

See also

In mountainous areas one often finds the peaks above the clouds as here for the Pico Ruivo seen from Pico do Arieiro, Portugal.

References

• Hamblyn, Richard The Invention of Clouds — How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies Picador; Reprint edition (August 3, 2002). ISBN 0312420013
• http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news/2006/04_14_06.htm Could Reducing Global Dimming Mean a Hotter, Dryer World?

External links

• Australia Severe Weather: cloud classification system
• Chitambo Clouds – Clouds and other meteorological phenomena Photographs and info. on different types of clouds
• BadMeteorology's explanation of why clouds form
• Cloud Appreciation Society Aesthetics of clouds
• Cloud photography
• Cloud Naming Lesson
• Cloud and Weather Photography
• Clouds - when the invisible reveals itself
• Shuttle Views the Earth: Clouds from Space

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