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Cloud Formation Process and Types of Cloud

Clouds form when warm, moist air rises, cools, and condenses into water droplets or ice crystals. Check this article to know more about the Cloud Formation Process and Types of Cloud.
authorImageJasdeep Bhatia5 Jul, 2024
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Cloud Formation Process

Cloud Formation Process play an important role in determining climatic changes. Furthermore, they are crucial in regulating and balancing the earth's radiation. Usually, the short and long-wavelength radiation varies depending on cloud intensity and other climatic changes caused by clouds. Thus, cloud formation has always been a prominent area of study in science. Here we explain the process of cloud formation and the types of clouds formed in detail.

Hormonal Imbalance

What Are Clouds?

The term cloud is derived from the Old English words clod or cloud, which means a hill or a heap of stone. A cloud is a mass of tiny water droplets or microscopic ice crystals generated by condensing water vapour in the open air at high elevations. In simple terms, it is an aerosol. Clouds form on Earth due to air saturation when it receives enough moisture (typically water vapour) from a nearby source or is cooled to its dew point. The process is possible because of evaporation and condensation. The newly formed cloud often takes varied shapes depending on their elevation.

Hormones Hormonal Disorders

Cloud Formation Process

Usually, terrestrial clouds can be found in the stratosphere, troposphere, and mesosphere, which comprise most of the homosphere. These clouds are formed in the following sequential steps.
  • The sun heats the earth's surface, and the air on the surface rises to the sky as it becomes lighter in weight and eventually floats upwards.
  • This warm air rises in the process of evaporation and then cools.
  • Thus the relative humidity increases. This is because it can only hold less water when the air cools.
  • This eventually makes the air saturated.
  • The water vapour formed through evaporation later condenses on dust, salt, smoke, and other small particles to form condensation nuclei.
  • Finally, clouds are formed, encompassing these condensation nuclei.

Hemophilia

Evaporation and Condensation

From the above process, it is clear that evaporation and condensation are the two vital processes that aid in cloud formation. Evaporation and condensation cause an increase or decrease in the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. Evaporation is the process through which water changes from a liquid to a gaseous state. The air can only carry a specific amount of water vapour in a particular space. This depends on the atmospheric pressure or weight and temperature of the air. The higher the atmospheric pressure or temperature, the more water vapour the air can store. When a specific air mass contains all the water vapour it can hold, it is called saturated. As a result, the air can no longer carry all that water vapour and the excess converts from a gas to a liquid or solid state (ice). Condensation - The process of water changing from a gas to a liquid is known as condensation. However, our atmosphere contains minuscule floating particles of smoke, salts, dust, silts, etc.  Thus the water vapour combines with these microscopic airborne particles and condenses into ice or liquid on the surfaces of dust particles in the air, just as water particles condense on the grass to make dew. Thus visible cloud forms as more water vapour condense into water droplets.

Herbivores Facts

How Does Precipitation happen?

So, if clouds are solid or liquid water, why don't they descend from the sky like snow or rain? Consider the small dust particles you frequently observe floating in a light beam. These are solid particles, but their mass is so low that they remain airborne. That is until they merge or collide with enough other particles, they cannot descend. Similarly, the ice crystals or liquid droplets that makeup clouds are small enough to remain in the air. Only when enough droplets accumulate and collide to produce larger droplets does precipitation begin to fall.

Heart Attack

Types of Clouds

Clouds are classified into four kinds based on height, expanse, density, and transparency or opaqueness:
  1. Cirrus - These clouds arise at high elevations (8,000 - 12,000m). They have a fluffy white appearance and are often thin and detached clouds.
  2. Cumulus - These clouds resemble cotton wool. They are typically created at elevations ranging from 4,000 to 7,000 meters. They exist in patches and can be found strewn about. They have a flat bottom.
  3. Stratus - As their name denotes, these are layered clouds covering enormous sky areas. These are low-level clouds typically created due to heat loss or the mixing of air masses of varying temperatures.
  4. Nimbus - These clouds are dark grey or black. They originate in the earth's middle layers and are quite close to the surface. These are incredibly dense and opaque and thus block the sun’s light. The clouds are sometimes so low that they appear to touch the ground. These are shapeless masses of dense vapour.

Health And Its Failure

Often, combining these 4 basic cloud types gives rise to the following
High Clouds Middle Clouds Low Clouds Clouds With Extensive Vertical Expansion
Cirrus Cirrostratus Cirrocumulus Altostratus Altocumulus Stratocumulus Nimbostratus Cumulus Cumulonimbus

Gram Positive Bacteria

What is cloud formation?

Due to the action of the sun, the water vapour evaporates from water sources and rises with the hot air. At a certain altitude, the air cools, and then the water vapour condenses into minute droplets, forming clouds.

What can affect evaporation?

Temperature, wind, and humidity all affect the rate of evaporation. When the temperature is high, the water gets more energy to evaporate. Low humidity increases evaporation since the air has a lot of untapped water-storing capacity. Likewise, wind can also promote evaporation because it exposes the water surface to more air.

What is an aerosol? 

An aerosol is a tiny solid particle or liquid droplet suspended in air or gas. Clouds, mist, fog, etc., are natural aerosols. Likewise, particulate air pollutants make up anthropogenic aerosols. 

Is the formation of a cloud a physical change?

A physical change is one in which the physical attributes of a material change but no new substance is generated. Cloud formation is a physical change caused by the transformation of water from liquid to gas and then back to liquid. Hence physical property changes.

What is the difference between clouds and fog? 

Clouds and fog occur when water vapour condenses or freezes in the air to create small droplets or crystals. Clouds can form at a wide range of altitudes, but fog only forms closer to the ground.
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