Why Do Clouds Stay Up?
Clouds form from water that has evaporated from lakes, oceans, and rivers, or from moist soil and plants. Clouds are water droplets, and water is heavy, so how do they stay up? There are several reasons, but the most important reason clouds stay up is because warm air rises. Air can hold only a certain amount of water vapor at any given temperature. Warm air can hold more water vapor than cool air can. When any air rises in the open atmosphere, it moves into a region of lower pressure, expands, and the temperature of the air falls (in other words, rising air normally gets colder). However, if the rising air is full of evaporated water, the falling temperature can cause the water vapor to condense (change to a liquid) and become a white mist made of tiny droplets. For water vapor to condense, particles so small they can be seen only through a microscope must be present. These particles, called condensation nuclei, become the centers of the droplets. Many condensation nuclei are tiny salt particles or small particles present in smoke. Most droplets measure from 1/2500 to 1/250 inch (0.01 to 0.1 millimeter) in diameter. When condensation takes place, energy is released, so the water-filled air bec
There are four main divisions in the classification of these clouds: high clouds, 20,000 to 40,000 feet (6,100-12,200 m); intermediate clouds, 6,500 to 20,000 feet (1,980-6,100 m); low clouds, near ground level to 6,500 feet (1,980 m); and clouds with vertical development, 1,600 feet to over 20,000 feet (490-6,100 m). It takes energy to boil water and it also takes energy to cause evaporation. The opposite occurs during condensation, and energy is returned. As a result of this energy release, rising air which contains condensing droplets will stay warmer than the surrounding air, so it will expand more than it should. As a result, it ends up becoming less dense than the surrounding air. The lighter, low-density, foggy air is driven upwards like a balloon. In other words, "hot air rises." The reason clouds are white is because the water droplets that make up the clouds are much larger than the molecules that scatter blue light. The clouds scatter and reflect all the visible colors of light that strike them. This causes to clouds to be white. Clouds provide one of the keys to understanding the weather. The water that they bring as rain or snow is necessary to all forms of life. Clouds can also bring destruction or even death, in the form of hail or tornadoes. Knowing about clouds, their shapes and changing patterns, will help you speculate about impending weather changes. This will help you to decide on your activities for the day, or if the clouds are threatening you can take the necessary precautions to keep safe. Intermediate clouds include altocumulus clouds. These are patchy layers of flattened globular masses arranged in groups, lines, or waves, with individual clouds sometimes so close together that their edges join. Altostratus clouds are also intermediate clouds which resemble thick cirrostratus without the halo phenomena, like a gray veil, through which the sun or the moon shows vaguely or is sometimes completely hidden. Clouds are w
Some common words found in the essay are:
Meteorological Commission, Nitrogen Oxygen, Stay Clouds, Weight H2, air rises, water vapor, clouds stay, Howard English, water droplets, vertical development, Lamarck French, Carbon Dioxide, vapor condense, evaporated water, water vapor condense, type cloud, arranged lines, rain snow, International Meteorological, drops cooling air, rises pressure drops, reason clouds stay, warmer surrounding air,
Approximate Word count = 1335
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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