Every week, several blog readers send me cloud photos to identify. So there is plenty of interest in clouds...and for good reason. A little knowledge about clouds is not only fun but can be useful as well.
So let me provide some cloud identification 101 today, starting with what you can tell by the characteristics of cloud edges.
Clouds are made up of either ice crystals, water droplets, or a combination of the two.
Importantly, you can differentiate between ice crystals and water droplets by looking at the cloud edges.
Clouds made of water droplets have sharp edges.
Like cumulus clouds:
Or the top of a fog bank:
On the other hand, ice crystal clouds have fuzzy, indistinct edges.
Such as cirrus clouds.
Or cirrostratus clouds:
When low-level clouds are not precipitating, the cloud base presents a lot of structure (see below)
In summary, the edges of clouds provide a lot of information for the knowledgeable observer.
Cliff, how does the top of a fog bank change as the temperature transitions from above to below freezing or vice versa?
ReplyDeleteWhen climate scientists model the physics of clouds in their modeling codes, do they use some combination of sharp-edged logic and fuzzy clouded logic?
ReplyDeleteDear Cliff, I got your name from Dr. Jim Steele, whom I know from the CO2 Coalition. I have a question. I graphed NOAA weather data from the only NOAA Maui WBAN:22516 station after I heard Michael Mann state that a "perfect storm" occurred that August ~7th day. The weather data doesn't support this. Considering I am a novice with weather data, do you concur that no unusual weather happened? This past August looks like what happened over the last 10 years, the span of the graph.
ReplyDeleteMark,
DeleteCliff did a post. There were very strong downslope winds. The term "perfect storm" is not in my dictionary, but very strong winds is there.