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:

    On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose,
    Tired of his dark dominion, swung the fiend
    Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened,
    George Meredith (1828–1909)

    When I from black and he from white cloud free,
    And round the tent of Godlike lambs we joy,

    I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear
    To lean in joy upon our father’s knee;
    And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,
    And be like him, and he will then love me.
    William Blake (1757–1827)

    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)