Cloud

Cloud

In meteorology, a cloud is a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water or various chemicals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body. These suspended particles are also known as aerosols. Clouds in earth's atmosphere are studied in the cloud physics branch of meteorology. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated; cooling the air or adding water vapor to the air. In general, precipitation will fall to the surface; an exception is virga, which evaporates before reaching the surface.

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Famous quotes containing the word cloud:

    Every cloud must have a silver lining.
    George A. Norton (1880–1923)

    If you wish --
    ... I’ll be irreproachably tender;
    not a man, but—a cloud in trousers!
    Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930)

    That which is given to see
    At any moment is the residue, shadowed
    In gold or emerging into the clear bluish haze
    Of uncertainty. We come back to ourselves
    Through the rubbish of cloud and tree-spattered pavement.
    These days stand like vapor under the trees.
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)