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Atmospheric pressure decreases with altitude, so the rising air expands in a process that expends energy and causes the air to cool, which makes water vapor condense into cloud. [8] Water vapor in saturated air is normally attracted to condensation nuclei such as dust and salt particles that are small enough to be held aloft by normal ...
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 7 February 2025. Visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere "Nephology" redirects here. Not to be confused with Nephrology. For other uses, see Cloud (disambiguation). Cloudscape over Borneo, taken by the International Space Station Part of a series on Weather ...
The symmetric shapes are due to depositional growth, which is when ice forms directly from water vapor in the atmosphere. [5] Small spaces in atmospheric particles can also collect water, freeze, and form ice crystals. [6] [7] This is known as nucleation. [8] Snowflakes form when additional vapor freezes onto an existing ice crystal. [9] [10]
Atmospheric thermodynamics is the study of heat-to-work transformations (and their reverse) that take place in the Earth's atmosphere and manifest as weather or climate. . Atmospheric thermodynamics use the laws of classical thermodynamics, to describe and explain such phenomena as the properties of moist air, the formation of clouds, atmospheric convection, boundary layer meteorology, and ...
Clouds form as relatively warmer air carrying moisture rises within cooler air. As the moist air rises, it cools, causing some of the water vapor in the rising packet of air to condense . [ 4 ] When the moisture condenses, it releases energy known as the latent heat of vaporisation, which allows the rising packet of air to cool less than its ...
Consequently, without the sun's heat, air cools, causing water droplets (or clouds) to revert to invisible vapor. "Along with the sudden darkness came a change in the clouds' color," Rao wrote of ...
Falling diamond dust (Inari, Finland) Diamond dust is similar to fog in that it is a cloud based at the surface; however, it differs from fog in two main ways. Generally fog refers to a cloud composed of liquid water (the term ice fog usually refers to a fog that formed as liquid water and then froze, and frequently seems to occur in valleys with airborne pollution such as Fairbanks, Alaska ...
As the cumulonimbus cloud in a thunderstorm grows vertically, the liquid water droplets freeze when the air temperature reaches the freezing point. [31] The anvil cloud takes its shape because the temperature inversion at the tropopause prevents the warm, moist air forming the thunderstorm from rising any higher, thus creating the flat top. [ 32 ]