Lesson 1 of clouds in geography

Clouds are a visible mass of small water drops or ice crystals formed by the
condensation of water vapor in the atmosphere, usually at a considerable height
above the earth’s surface. Clouds are caused mainly by the adiabatic cooling of
air below, its dew point. Clouds are grouped by whether they are high, medium,
or low clouds. There are ten basic cloud types. A couple of example of clouds are:

Cirrus clouds

These clouds are high, white and thin. They are composed of ice crystals. They
form delicate patches and give a fibrous and feathery appearance. Other high
clouds include cirrostratus and cirrocumulus.

Cumulus clouds

These low clouds have a flat base and have the appearance of rising domes. These
clouds are often described as having cauliflower structure. Other types of low
clouds are: stratocumulus, stratus, nimbostratus, and cumulo nimbus.

Stratus clouds

These low clouds are fairly thin and blanket like. Subdivided into high clouds,
medium clouds and low clouds.

Types of medium clouds include: altocumulus, nimbostratus, and altostratus. Alto

and Nimbo are the two prefixes which refer to middle level clouds and low clouds
of considerable thickness with dark grey appearance respectively.
Contrails Clouds

Contrails are narrow, elongated clouds that form when exhaust from airplanes
crystalizes at high altitudes. Contrails appear as narrow, white bands in the sky.

Precipitation and Clouds

Precipitation is the formation of water particles or ice within the cloud that falls
towards the earth’s surface. It occurs when condensation takes place rapidly
within the cloud.

Precipitation in the form of ice pellets (hail stones) that develops in and fall from
cumulo nimbus clouds, either at a cold front or where intense heating of the
surface causes rapidly ascending convection currents called Hails.

Where Do Clouds Occur on Earth?

Clouds can be found all around the world. One study looked at almost a decade of
satellite imagery to calculate that clouds cover about 67% of the Earth.

The amount of cloud cover in any given located varies and is influenced by a
factors such as humidity, landscapes, and wind. Cloud cover tends to be higher
over oceans where only about ten percent of oceans are cloud-free. Over land,
that percentage rises to about 30% cloud free.

NASA created a map that shows average cloudiness around the world. Cloud
cover from satellite imagery collected between July 2002 and April 2015 was
averaged for this cloud fraction map. Areas that are white indicate a higher cloud
cover while darker blue areas indicate no clouds.