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For other uses, see Cloud (disambiguation).

Cumuliform cloudscape over Swifts Creek, Australia

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In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of

minute liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in
the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space.[1] Water or various other chemicals
may compose the droplets and crystals. On Earth, clouds are formed as a result of
saturation of the air when it is cooled to its dew point, or when it gains sufficient
moisture (usually in the form of water vapor) from an adjacent source to raise the dew
point to the ambient temperature.
They are seen in the Earth's homosphere, which includes
the troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere. Nephology is the science of clouds,
which is undertaken in the cloud physics branch of meteorology.
The two methods of naming clouds in their respective layers of the atmosphere are
Latin and common. Genus types in the troposphere, the atmospheric layer closest to
Earth's surface, have Latin names due to the universal adoption of Luke
Howard's nomenclature. Formally proposed in 1802, it became the basis of a modern
international system that divides clouds into five physical forms that appear in any or all
of three altitude levels (formerly known as étages). These physical cloud types
include stratiform sheets, cirriform wisps and patches, stratocumuliform layers (mainly
structured as rolls, ripples, and patches), cumuliform heaps, and very
large cumulonimbiform heaps that often show complex structures. The physical forms
are divided by altitude levels into 10 basic genus-types.