Visit his website: Donald Cronkhite

Cloud logos: credit www.flogos.net

We all enjoy the playful side of cloudspotting, using our imagination to see shapes like the face of Salvador Dali or A Pig With Six Legs.

However, soon our skies may feature Mickey Mouse ears and Coca-Cola symbols, thanks to the latest bright idea in advertising.

Two Hollywood special effects inventors are marketing a machine that can pump out 4ft foam clouds in the shape of company logos at the rate of one every 15 seconds.

Called Flogos (flying logos), they are made from soap bubbles filled with helium and can travel 30 miles at up to 20,000ft before evaporating, according to the product’s website.

Major brands like Disney and Apple are said to be interested but not everyone likes the idea of high-flying ads. CAS founder Gavin Pretor-Pinney told a Sunday newspaper: “I find the concept of someone sending up clouds in the shape of a Coca-Cola logo, or something like that, absolutely abhorrent.

“If you live in the city you are constantly bombarded by corporate messages. Clouds, with their formlessness, are the last wilderness you have to gaze upon. It would be a sad day if you gaze up and find that you had a company logo in the clouds.”

Flogo co-inventor Brian Glover is upset that his project has caused offence. “Mr (Francisco) Guerra and myself developed Flogos as a entertaining, visually pleasing display. These are very benign soap foam shapes, not roadside billboards.

“We see Flogos being used sparingly, at special events or parades. It will unlikely be a daily occurrence, polluting the sky everywhere.”

The Cumulonimbus could never be called a refined cloud. It is the beast of the lower atmosphere: roaring with deafening thunder; spitting shards of lightning and hailstones; whipping up twisting tornadoes and spawning dramatic cloud features, such as the udder-shaped mammatus clouds, cigar-shaped roll clouds and, well, wall-shaped wall clouds. Sometimes, the Cumulonimbus also produces something called a ‘microburst’, which is best thought of as a cloud sneeze. Don’t be deceived by the ‘micro’ part: the sneeze of a Cumulonimbus is anything but restrained.

A microburst is a very localized column of air – up to 2.5 miles (4km) across – which shoots earthwards from the base of the cloud, spreading outwards with violent force upon reaching the ground. With gusting speeds of up to 150 mph, these winds can damage buildings, fell trees, and have been known to cause aviation crashes.

Much like human sneezes, microbursts can be either dry or wet. They do however last rather longer than ours: between 5 and 15 minutes. Along with chilly winds, the wet varieties produce sudden downpours. These can be quite heavy: enough to give you a cold, should you be in the firing line without the right clothing. Could the Cumulonimbus not muffle its vulgar microbursts? Presumably, no one has ever had the courage to try and teach this beast of the atmosphere any manners.

 

]]> http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/may-08/feed/ http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/ian-peill/ http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/ian-peill/#comments Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:29:21 +0000 nick http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/?p=1734 in Herefordshire, UK

Visit his website: Cloud art by Ian Peill

]]> http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/ian-peill/feed/ http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/mars-clouds/ http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/mars-clouds/#comments Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:49:56 +0000 nick http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/?p=1731

Video of clouds on Mars: NASA/
JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU/
Texas A&M/Navigation camera

Earthbound cloud watchers will be glad to know they are not alone.

No, we are not talking about Little Green Men, although the observer scanning the skies does live on Mars.

Our fellow cloud lover is Opportunity, one of the two Mars Exploration Rovers which have been studying the history of water on that inhospitable planet since landing in 2004.

In March, Opportunity lifted its robot eyes skyward to video clouds drifting overhead, according to an update on The Planetary Society website. The clouds it captured passing over Victoria Crater look like cirrus clouds on Earth, feather-like formations composed mostly of ice crystals.

Thanks to Carole Boon for sifting through pages of scientific reports to bring us this gem.

Chinese gun crews ready to blast
clouds © Reuters

China has had a bad press recently - and it is about to get worse.

First there was the Olympic torch fiasco; now it seems the Chinese hate clouds enough to blast them out of the sky.

News reaches us from a reliable source (Reuters) that China is preparing to fire rockets at any clouds threatening to rain on the Olympics opening ceremony at the roofless stadium in Bejing.

Crews surrounding the city will be on alert to fire rockets or cannons containing silver iodide at approaching clouds in the hope of making them rain before they reach the stadium, says the report. Three aircraft will also be on standby to drop catalysts to unleash rain from the clouds.

Our thanks to the appropriately-named Glenn Rainey (member 146) for spotting this story.

Too much time on your hands? Looking for something to amuse the kids?

Then why not try this cloud puzzle from NASA, the people who also brought you the first man on the moon.

It’s cool, slightly addictive and has the added benefit of being educational. Every time you unscramble the jigsaw, it tells you what kind of clouds they are.

Then you can either pick a new puzzle or scramble the picture into smaller pieces and do it all over again. Ah, hours of endless fun . . . .

Fewer clouds may have led to super-
greenhouse episodes © iStockphoto

It seems that clouds may hold the key to what scientists call our planet’s supergreenhouse episodes.

Climate experts know it was much warmer during the Cretaceous and Eocene periods, roughly between 146 and 35 million years ago. Average temperatures in the tropics were above 100 degrees Fahrenheit and polar temperatures were in the 50-degree Fahrenheit range.

Previously, they worked on the theory that increases in gases like carbon dioxide caused the warming. Now they believe it was reduced cloud cover, which in turn changed the Earth’s albedo (the amount of sunlight reflected into space).

According to researchers, there may have been changes in the production of cloud condensation nuclei, the tiny particles around which water condenses to form rain drops and cloud droplets. This would have led to fewer and less bright clouds and increased the sun’s warming effect.

Click here to read more about the science behind the idea.

Closely related to the optical effect called a corona, the bands of pastel colours produced by this cloud are known as ‘iridescence’. When the Sun is at the right position, preferably hidden by thicker cloud making observation safer and easier, the cloud’s droplets or ice crystals can diffract the sunlight passing through. The array of microscopic cloud particles bends the coloured constituents of sunlight by different amounts, separating them out into bands.

Iridescence can often occur in Altocumulus and Cirrocumulus clouds, but appears most often in lenticular clouds. The effect tends to be observed at the clouds’ fringes, but it can occasionally appear over large areas, as it has in this fine Cirrocumulus over Perth, Western Australia. Iridescent colours look most dramatic in a young cloud, whose newly formed droplets all tend to be around the same size.

We are genetically programmed to see the beauty in our own children, regardless what little terrors they actually are. But what of baby clouds? Surely everyone loves the iridescent glow of their tender cheeks – especially as they don’t even demand to have their nappies changed.

 

]]> http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/april-08/feed/ http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/global-cooling/ http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/global-cooling/#comments Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:28:09 +0000 nick http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/global-cooling/

The Global Cooling Project hopes to use
clouds to combat global warming

Cloud lovers will be proud to hear that our fluffy friends may soon be helping to slow down global warming.

Scientists are working on an ingenious plan to restore cloud cover in semi-arid regions, like West Africa, by harvesting rainwater and using it to increase soil moisture.

Combined with selective tree-planting, it is hoped this will encourage clouds to form naturally, helping to both reflect direct heat from the sun and also carry heat from the earth and radiate it out to space.

There could be many other positive side-effects for the local population, including improved agriculture and forestry and reduced flooding.

Visit the Global Cooling Project website if you want to learn more.

If you are a graphic designer, you may be able to offer some practical help. The project is looking for someone to design a logo for visiting cards and letterheads, possibly including stratus and/or cumulonimbus clouds over land. Email Ray Taylor (ray [at] andy-taylor.org) for more information or use the contact form on his website (see above).