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Little, Fluffy Clouds · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chump Bryant.
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Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about cloud and we just had a
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Speaker 1: parade of producers in here today. Yeah, we're third we recorded,
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Speaker 1: we're recording to podcasts today and we're on our third
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Speaker 1: producer Jerry is out, so we had guest producer Matt
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Speaker 1: and then we had the head hunt. Well during sometime
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Speaker 1: during the podcast, they switched without telling you, and Matt
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Speaker 1: became Roxanna. Now we have Tyler and Josh made a
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Speaker 1: really funny joke, which is, we just need to get
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Speaker 1: one of those birds that has the water in it
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Speaker 1: or something and just have it set over the our
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Speaker 1: button so it can pack the record or a baby
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Speaker 1: that can press our right, that's what we need. See
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Speaker 1: Tyler's laughing. That's good. Yeah, that is. It was like
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Speaker 1: a yeah, well, she probably thought correctly, like I shouldn't
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Speaker 1: make any noise, right, Tyler's not thinking that. Uh, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: have you ever seen a cloud? I have? I love
1:14
Speaker 1: clouds than out one for you. Have you ever heard
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Speaker 1: of a man named Luke Howard? Spill it. It's a
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Speaker 1: good name, incident, Luke Howard, especially for the late eighteenth
1:24
Speaker 1: early nineteenth century. That's a good name for that. It's
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Speaker 1: it's kind of like a a somebody our age would
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Speaker 1: be named Luke Howard. You know, it just doesn't seem
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Speaker 1: old timing to me. Well, okay, this guy named Luke Howard,
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Speaker 1: young englishman, right, He's walking around planet Earth and everyone
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Speaker 1: around him is calling um, well, yeah, he was born
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Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy three, eighteen sixty four, didn't live to
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Speaker 1: see the American Civil War come to a close, sadly,
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Speaker 1: but he probably figured it would eventually. Possibly didn't predict
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Speaker 1: the following year, but who knows. Well. Back during Luke
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Speaker 1: Howard's time, before he was aged twenty, right, he was
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Speaker 1: walking around and people were calling clouds essences like idiots, right,
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Speaker 1: that's what we called clouds essences, Like look at that
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Speaker 1: beautiful puffy essence in the sky, not even that, just like,
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Speaker 1: look at that essence. It's probably gonna eat us eventually,
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Speaker 1: it's gonna eat the Earth. You know, we we didn't
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Speaker 1: understand gases very well. We didn't understand um different states
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Speaker 1: of solidity liquid gas. What a time to be alive
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Speaker 1: it was. There was a time of ignorance and profound
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Speaker 1: um fear and wonder. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot left
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Speaker 1: to discover, right um. Well, Luke Howard helped put the
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Speaker 1: kai bosh on that discovery by classifying clouds. First of all,
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Speaker 1: he started calling him clouds, not essences. He actually thought
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Speaker 1: up the name cloud. He was the first to call
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Speaker 1: him clouds as far as I know. He at aged twenty,
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Speaker 1: he called him Luke's yeah or Howard's miss about there,
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Speaker 1: look at that beautiful Howard little fluffy Howard's um. Anyway,
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Speaker 1: uh Luke joined he was a pharmacist. He joined a
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Speaker 1: group called the Eskisians, which means seekers of knowledge um
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Speaker 1: and as basically to entertain themselves. Every week or whenever
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Speaker 1: they met, each one would present a scientific paper like
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Speaker 1: one would present for that night. And finally, when he's twenty,
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Speaker 1: uh Luke gets his turn to present a paper that
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Speaker 1: he prepared and it's called on the modification of clouds,
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Speaker 1: and modification meant what we would consider today classification and
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Speaker 1: in parentheses essences. So people knew what that Yeah, And
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Speaker 1: that paper actually formed the basis of how we still
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Speaker 1: classify clouds. This kid just kind of came up with
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Speaker 1: it and it was just dead on. It just made
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Speaker 1: such utter sense that hundreds of years later we still
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Speaker 1: use his classification system. I would say that puts him
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Speaker 1: in the realm of some of the great unknown, uh
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Speaker 1: important people on the planet. I would say that, you're right,
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Speaker 1: my friend, that's something. It's stuff of a genius episode
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Speaker 1: to me. Yes, it does. So should we should we
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Speaker 1: run down the four main types of clouds that he
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Speaker 1: thought of? Yeah, he basically classified them. He modified them,
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Speaker 1: in the parlance of the day, by their shape right
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Speaker 1: or size, and their altitude and in a subcategory, their
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Speaker 1: ability to precipitate on the earth. Right, all right, I'll
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Speaker 1: go ahead and read these off, because you know, Latin
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Speaker 1: is my thing. Cumulus Josh means heap or pile. And
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Speaker 1: those are the ones, those are the money clouds. Those
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Speaker 1: are the ones that are flat on the bottom and
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Speaker 1: real billyy puffy fluffy clouds. Fluffy clouds, but usually big
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Speaker 1: not little. Yes. Uh. Stratus clouds are means layer and
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Speaker 1: they are short and kind of spread across a distance.
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Speaker 1: You got the syrus, which means curl of hair, interesting,
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Speaker 1: whispy and thin. And then you got the old nimbus
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Speaker 1: and those are rain clouds and it means rainy cloud, right,
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Speaker 1: which ironically, maybe not ironically, it's probably a terrible word
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Speaker 1: to use. But eight o eight State had a great
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Speaker 1: song called Nimbus, and the orb had the song Little
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Speaker 1: Fuffy Clouds that this episode is named after. We should, uh,
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Speaker 1: that was a great song, Little Fuffy Fluffy Clouds. We
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Speaker 1: should get that in here somehow, I think we should.
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Speaker 1: It was on the It appeared on the album The
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Speaker 1: Orbs Adventures Beyond the Ultra Worldly. Great album, the whole
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Speaker 1: thing from beginning and just awesome. It's like Dark Side
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Speaker 1: of the Moon kind of except what's happier and techno year. Yeah.
5:41
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Montana? No, I've been to Idaho,
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Speaker 1: so I kind of have an idea of what you're
5:47
Speaker 1: talking to. Deal. You know, I had a guy when
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Speaker 1: I was in Montana. Explain Because I lived in the
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Speaker 1: desert of Yuma, Arizona for a while, and you can
5:55
Speaker 1: see from horizon to horizon there, but a lot of
5:58
Speaker 1: times it's just blue sky, and so you know it's
6:01
Speaker 1: it's it looks expansive. But then you go to Montana
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Speaker 1: and they call it Big Skyland, and you get out
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Speaker 1: of the plane and you it's immediately looks larger. And
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Speaker 1: a guy that lived there said it was because of
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Speaker 1: the clouds. He said, they get these huge, long, abillowy
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Speaker 1: cumulus clouds and it gives it a perspective that you
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Speaker 1: don't get, like when it's just a blue sky in
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Speaker 1: the desert. And so it gives the illusion that this
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Speaker 1: guy is actually larger. Right, So it sounded good to me.
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Speaker 1: I didn't paint it on the clouds, but you can't tell.
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Speaker 1: There's a difference. It's enormous and vast fast. Yeah. Alright.
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Speaker 1: So and for those of us, for those who really
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Speaker 1: pay attention to the podcast, there is no h on humor.
6:42
Speaker 1: It actually is pronounced. It's not humor, Josh shol We
6:46
Speaker 1: talk about types of clouds by altitude. Yes, I think
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Speaker 1: we should, chuck. Let's start with high Yeah. Um. So
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Speaker 1: we talked about we talked about based on size or shape, right, yes, um.
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Speaker 1: And you can take those shapes and depending on where
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Speaker 1: they are in altitude, they have different names, different prefixes.
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Speaker 1: The high level clouds generally have some sort of prefixed
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Speaker 1: like zero. Right, So you've got serious clouds sero cumulus
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Speaker 1: and serious stratus clouds, and serious stratus clouds are often
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Speaker 1: they're they're usually very high, very thin, and sometimes there's
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Speaker 1: such a thin layer that you can only detect them
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Speaker 1: when they're sucks deposed against the moon. Then you can
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Speaker 1: see that it's creating a halo effect. That's actually a
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Speaker 1: serious stratus cloud. Right, Yes, zero cumulus one of my favorites,
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Speaker 1: very very high level, puffy cotton balls way up there. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and then chuck take it home with cirrus. Uh. Serious
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Speaker 1: clouds Josh are white and delicate, and their whispy, and
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Speaker 1: they sometimes have little swirls at the end, uh, created
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Speaker 1: by the wind, by the wind, by the end created
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Speaker 1: by the wind. And you can like detect air patterns
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Speaker 1: a lot of times by what it's doing to these
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Speaker 1: kind of clouds. Yeah, or you can just lick your
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Speaker 1: finger and hold it up. Yes, high level. We should
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Speaker 1: point out the bottoms of the cloud. And it's always
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Speaker 1: measured at the bottom because clouds can be pretty tall. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: the bottom is usually between twenty forty feet not usually
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Speaker 1: that's how it's classified. This is when you have to
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Speaker 1: break through when you're reaching your cruising altitude in an airplane.
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Speaker 1: Mats in here. Now you're joking, Tyler's gone, mats in here.
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Speaker 1: This is nuts. I have a feeling where the victims
8:27
Speaker 1: of some sort of practical joke perpetrated by the woman
8:30
Speaker 1: who says that you're listening to we should have a contest.
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Speaker 1: You two can produce stuff you should know. Just show up. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: we'll let you in. If you have a working index finger,
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Speaker 1: you can produce stuff you should know. All right, let's
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Speaker 1: go down to mid level clouds. And these have bottoms
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Speaker 1: that began at about six hundred twenty thousand feet. Take
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Speaker 1: it away. Well, the the mid level clouds are usually
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Speaker 1: described by the prefixed alto, which makes mid level clouds
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Speaker 1: the Kenny of clouds. So you've got Alto cumulus alto stratus.
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Speaker 1: That written down or did you okay it's written down?
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Speaker 1: I didn't want to forget Alto stratus. Yeah. Alto cumulus
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Speaker 1: are like sheets of um, like little round clouds um.
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Speaker 1: And then they're kind of like Sero cumulus, but they
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Speaker 1: have shading right um, which I hadn't really thought about.
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Speaker 1: But I've noticed the difference. Oh yeah, you know, I
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Speaker 1: would encourage people that, you know, if you're at a
9:34
Speaker 1: computer and you're not just listening to this in the
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Speaker 1: car or something, follow along like a type in Google images,
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Speaker 1: he's you know, it helps. It does help, because this
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Speaker 1: is really difficult to describe because you you know, you can.
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Speaker 1: You can very easily pick out the cumulus clouds, the
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Speaker 1: fluffy one, everyone's favorite. But once you start to get
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Speaker 1: into you know, serio cumulus, that kind of thing, it
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Speaker 1: just becomes a little harder to describe. Well, imagine true
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Speaker 1: Alto stratus, though, I will say you might know those
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Speaker 1: because those are the really really solid, thick ones, so
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Speaker 1: much so that that's when you're out on a sunny
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Speaker 1: day and one passes over and it gets noticeably dark
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Speaker 1: and you get shadows and things like that. Those are
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Speaker 1: Alto stratus. And then the low level clouds you want
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Speaker 1: to talk about them, yeah, below set right, So these
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Speaker 1: are the ones that we would conceive of, um creating fog.
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Speaker 1: Yeah right, Um, there's Cumulus strato Cumulus stratus stratus clouds
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Speaker 1: are the ones that resemble fog, that make this guy
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Speaker 1: look overcast, where it's just like you can't tell it's
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Speaker 1: nothing but clouds or else if it's just kind of
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Speaker 1: a great day or what's going on? Did you hit
10:42
Speaker 1: your head that kind of thing. Yeah, And there's also
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Speaker 1: the classic fair weather cumulus, and those are the those
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Speaker 1: are the money clouds, that's when it's really bright and blue,
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Speaker 1: big puffy cotton balls that look like funny rabbits or
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Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson or whatever. Right. And then there's there's strato
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Speaker 1: cumulus um where you can usually pick those out at
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Speaker 1: night as well, um most easily because they're the ones
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Speaker 1: that pass in front of the moon, right, and there's
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Speaker 1: like breaks in them, and that's strato cumulus. So like
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Speaker 1: it's it's so strange to think because you've experienced in
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Speaker 1: your thirty nine thirty nine years walking around this planet
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Speaker 1: all these different types of clouds, right, but you might
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Speaker 1: as well have been walking around calling them essences because
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Speaker 1: we didn't really realize that they have all these different classifications.
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Speaker 1: Are that the ones that the moon breakthrough here there
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Speaker 1: are actually um strato cumulus right um. The ones that
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Speaker 1: are the big, big fluffy clouds are cumulus. The ones
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Speaker 1: that rain are nimbus, Yeah, Cumulo nimbus clouds are thunderstorm
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Speaker 1: clouds basically low level and uh nimbus stratus are also
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Speaker 1: very the dark, low hanging clouds, right, and those are
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Speaker 1: attached into like this kind of extra category called vertically
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Speaker 1: to veloped clouds. Right. Um, these things are so tall,
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Speaker 1: so large, and they form vertically uh in these piles
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Speaker 1: that they actually transcend altitudes, they cross over altitudinal boundaries. Okay,
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Speaker 1: so they creep into different like low level and mid
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Speaker 1: level right yeah. Um, so those are the types of clouds. Right.
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Speaker 1: Are you still with us? I am yeah, if I
12:25
Speaker 1: was not in it, we got through the boring part.
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Speaker 1: Now we're going to talk about how clouds form, right, yeah,
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Speaker 1: this is a good part. I agree. Evaporation and well
12:35
Speaker 1: let's start this out with something that comes later in
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Speaker 1: the article. Clouds are collections of little water droplets and
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Speaker 1: crystallized water molecules. That's what a cloud is, right, We
12:45
Speaker 1: should have led the show off with that. Basically, cloud forms.
12:49
Speaker 1: And here if you ever are wondering how cloud forms,
12:52
Speaker 1: if anyone ever asks you, just bust this out. Clouds
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Speaker 1: form when warm, moist air encounters cooler air. Simple as that. Sure, Um,
13:02
Speaker 1: we can get into a little more complexity, shall we Yes, Uh,
13:05
Speaker 1: think about a hot day and you have like pour
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Speaker 1: some water on the asphalt on a hot day, it's
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Speaker 1: going to evaporate quicker. And you a dummy would just say,
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Speaker 1: well it's hot, right, Yeah, But the reasons happening is
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Speaker 1: because the water molecules are are more excited it's hot,
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Speaker 1: They're moving around more, they can spread out further, can
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Speaker 1: spread out from a body of water and then basically
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Speaker 1: bust free into water vapor more easily. Right, And Toothman
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Speaker 1: who wrote this article uses the example of a bird bath, right, yes,
13:35
Speaker 1: but you can use the bird bath is pretty much
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Speaker 1: a metaphor for any body of water on Earth. Clouds
13:40
Speaker 1: ultimately formed from the evaporation of water on the Earth's surface. Which,
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Speaker 1: uh so, these water molecules become excited turn into water vapor,
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Speaker 1: which is capable of interacting with the air. They may
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Speaker 1: rise up when they encounter cooler air higher up, they're
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Speaker 1: going to condense all of a sudden and full warm clouds. Right,
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Speaker 1: that's called a convective cloud boom. It can also happen
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Speaker 1: when warm moist air encounters a cold front, just a
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Speaker 1: piece of cold air that's not necessarily higher in altitude,
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Speaker 1: but it's coming in front the right or the left.
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Speaker 1: And then along that front where the warm moist air
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Speaker 1: meets the edge of the coal. There the edge that's
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Speaker 1: created that's going to cause precipitation boom again and clouds,
14:24
Speaker 1: clouds josh also form a little easier if the water
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Speaker 1: vapor uh, that's evaporating, how something to grab onto so
14:31
Speaker 1: that allows it to change into a liquid or solid
14:34
Speaker 1: phase easier. And they call these condensation nuclei or freezing nuclei.
14:39
Speaker 1: Sounds fancy, it's really what we're talking about is dust,
14:42
Speaker 1: sea salt. There's like a wildfire, soot from the wildfire
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Speaker 1: stuff in the air serve as particulate matter, yeah, particular matter,
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Speaker 1: and that that serves to make the clouds form quicker. Right,
14:55
Speaker 1: because what you have is something that it forms the
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Speaker 1: nucleus of this water opplet, and it starts attracting more
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Speaker 1: and more and more and more, and then eventually this uh,
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Speaker 1: this water droplet gets so heavy that it can't be
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Speaker 1: sustained against the force of gravity any longer, which pulls
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Speaker 1: it down to Earth as a rain drop, or if
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Speaker 1: it's cold enough, pulls it down to earth as a
15:17
Speaker 1: nice crystal, which you might know and love as a
15:20
Speaker 1: snowflake meteorology with Josh Clark. Before we move on to that,
15:25
Speaker 1: which is awesome, I do want to point out that
15:26
Speaker 1: one of the other things that can serve as a
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Speaker 1: uh condensation nuclei is bacteria. Plant bacteria and the air
15:35
Speaker 1: can help clouds form more quickly. That's right. It's weird, man,
15:41
Speaker 1: is it weird? I don't know it just it is
15:43
Speaker 1: to me. Why we know you can't see it. It's happening,
15:49
Speaker 1: but you can't see it. So anything I can't see
15:51
Speaker 1: it's just weird. Not weird. That ultra violet light. Yeah, yeah, okay, alright,
15:58
Speaker 1: microscopic stuff as weird. I hate art. Alright, chuck. Clouds
16:06
Speaker 1: move around, we should say, because the difference in the
16:08
Speaker 1: air temperature within the cloud then outside it. You can
16:11
Speaker 1: push it around here and there. Yeah, let's look a
16:14
Speaker 1: good way to look at clouds that I realized from
16:16
Speaker 1: researching this article is that um clouds almost follow the
16:21
Speaker 1: first law of thermodynamics, Right, They can't be created or destroyed,
16:25
Speaker 1: They just change formation. Right. If you look at clouds
16:28
Speaker 1: as part of the rain cycle, right that that that
16:31
Speaker 1: is basically this interaction between the water on the earth
16:35
Speaker 1: surface and the atmosphere, and they're they're a reaction. They're
16:38
Speaker 1: part of this reaction. Different types of clouds, right. Um.
16:42
Speaker 1: Then they're they're constantly moving. This water vapor is either
16:45
Speaker 1: in the air, invisible as water vapor, visible as a cloud,
16:50
Speaker 1: or visible as part of the water on the earth surface. Right.
16:54
Speaker 1: So clouds like churn into one another. It's not like
16:57
Speaker 1: I'm a cumulus cloud now, I'm just gone, right. They'll
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Speaker 1: usually turn into one another as they rise and fall,
17:03
Speaker 1: and then it's all, yeah, it's a part of the
17:05
Speaker 1: big cycle. Right. So say that you have a big
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Speaker 1: old cumulus cloud, nice warm, moist cumulus cloud, all right,
17:15
Speaker 1: love them, and it hits a wedge of coal. Are
17:18
Speaker 1: that cold front causes precipitation? Right? Um? And it's actually
17:23
Speaker 1: usually when a warm a warm cloud meets cold there
17:28
Speaker 1: the warm clouds forced up, right uh, And it's going
17:33
Speaker 1: to cool, which will cause precipitation. But it's also going
17:36
Speaker 1: to cause that cloud to just rise further and further
17:38
Speaker 1: and it's going to evolve, so it'll hit that middle
17:40
Speaker 1: altitude and become like an Alto stratus or alto cumulus cloud.
17:45
Speaker 1: It's gonna break up a little further and finally will
17:47
Speaker 1: probably reach into the upper atmosphere and become a serious cloud.
17:51
Speaker 1: And then you know, um jazz hands or what is it?
17:56
Speaker 1: What does those hands call? Dream hands? Dream and it
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Speaker 1: turns back into water vapor possibly just kind of drifts
18:04
Speaker 1: along until it reaches the right conditions to become a
18:06
Speaker 1: cloud again, or it might just travel back to Earth
18:10
Speaker 1: and condense into a body of water. You could do
18:12
Speaker 1: a little one man show dream hand Josh explains clouds
18:15
Speaker 1: through uh beats and physical movements. Have you seen the
18:19
Speaker 1: dream Hands video? And now I have gotta show you this.
18:22
Speaker 1: I thought you were talking about the rainbow guy at first.
18:25
Speaker 1: Which one is that full double rainbow? No, it's very
18:28
Speaker 1: similar to that. That guy's he's full of one. He's like,
18:31
Speaker 1: look at those essences of something. Uh. So we talked
18:37
Speaker 1: about rain a little bit, We talked about snow a
18:38
Speaker 1: little bit. This is what I found most interesting. What
18:42
Speaker 1: what about the others? What about sleep? Freezing rain, and hail?
18:46
Speaker 1: I found this endlessly interesting. I did because freezing rain,
18:49
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't know how any of this stuff worked.
18:52
Speaker 1: And I was in I took a meteorology class in college.
18:54
Speaker 1: I guess it just sort of left my brain space
18:57
Speaker 1: at some point. But freezing and Josh is when it's
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Speaker 1: a snowflake at first falls down through the atmosphere, gets
19:06
Speaker 1: a little warmer, melts, turns back into rain, continues to fall,
19:10
Speaker 1: passes through another layer of cold air, becomes super cool,
19:14
Speaker 1: but it doesn't refreeze, hits the ground and hits something
19:18
Speaker 1: so cold on the ground that it freezes. Right, that's
19:21
Speaker 1: freezing rain. Yes, that's different than sleep sleets, sort of
19:25
Speaker 1: the same thing, except it actually has enough time to refreeze.
19:29
Speaker 1: The melted snowflake refreezes before it hits the ground the
19:32
Speaker 1: cold air, right, you know that's on the ground and
19:35
Speaker 1: up as big enough so that it as that droplet
19:38
Speaker 1: is passing through, it refreezes and then take it away. Hale. Well,
19:43
Speaker 1: hail is particularly interesting because it's associated with um severe
19:49
Speaker 1: storms that have a lot of updrafts and gusts within it. Right,
19:53
Speaker 1: So this the the ice crystals or the rain droplets
19:57
Speaker 1: are being kicked up and around, and you know it's
20:00
Speaker 1: freezing in in thawing and refreezing and more water vapors
20:04
Speaker 1: being attracted to it, and the gusts are strong enough
20:09
Speaker 1: that this can be prolonged so that it turns into
20:13
Speaker 1: ice chunks the size of like Evolvo. It collects more stuff. Basically,
20:17
Speaker 1: is it's going down than the wind says no, no no, no,
20:19
Speaker 1: you're going back up, And it goes back down. Then
20:21
Speaker 1: it goes back up, and then do you have, like
20:23
Speaker 1: you said, damage damaging hail. Right, Uh, it just can't
20:27
Speaker 1: be sustained any longer. It's just too heavy. Which that's
20:30
Speaker 1: the story with all precipitation, right, Yeah, it's the stuff
20:34
Speaker 1: forming up in the atmosphere out of water and it's
20:36
Speaker 1: either cold enough to freeze, or it's not so it's
20:38
Speaker 1: rain or it's snow, and then it becomes so fat
20:41
Speaker 1: that gravity can't support it any longer. The wonders of
20:44
Speaker 1: the earth. Chunks of ice can form out of invisible
20:49
Speaker 1: nothing's in the air and fall on your car. Isn't
20:52
Speaker 1: that awesome? It is pretty awesome, like this kind of stuff.
20:55
Speaker 1: I used to sit on the my roof in college
20:57
Speaker 1: and talk about, you know, with my friends endlessly. Really
21:00
Speaker 1: I used to talk about the Illuminati. Oh yeah, well
21:03
Speaker 1: that too. My friend Jason actually that lives in Japan. Now,
21:08
Speaker 1: he was my first friend to turn me onto all
21:11
Speaker 1: these like stuff they don't want you to know type stuff.
21:14
Speaker 1: He was everyone had that first friend. I was like,
21:17
Speaker 1: what secret societies? Tell me more? And I was like,
21:21
Speaker 1: clouds are cool. Yeah. I have to say I was
21:24
Speaker 1: a little disappointed. I thought this was gonna be. This
21:27
Speaker 1: ended up being more of like, well, we gotta understand
21:29
Speaker 1: this to understand everything, and I see I was blown away.
21:32
Speaker 1: Where are you really? I'm glad, Yeah, I'm glad. Man
21:36
Speaker 1: childlike wonder, Josh. Let's talk about why clouds. What they do.
21:42
Speaker 1: One of the things they do is move dust. Yeah,
21:45
Speaker 1: and is mind blowing. I think it is. What is
21:50
Speaker 1: it thirteen million tons? Well that's just between Africa and
21:53
Speaker 1: a certain spot of the Amazon basin. It is kind
21:57
Speaker 1: of at least to desertification. Well can One of the
22:01
Speaker 1: cool things about clouds is that if you have particular matter,
22:05
Speaker 1: as we saw, whether it's plant bacteria or from wildfires, um,
22:09
Speaker 1: it's going to cause precipitation a lot more easily, which
22:13
Speaker 1: is the idea behind cloud seating, right, like the disaster
22:17
Speaker 1: by the Royal Air Force in where they seated clouds
22:21
Speaker 1: and like ninety million tons of rain hit in a
22:24
Speaker 1: day and killed a lot of people in Great Britain,
22:28
Speaker 1: and the Royal Air Force is like, whoops is going
22:30
Speaker 1: to be classified till two thousand one. And when I
22:32
Speaker 1: say it worked, I don't mean I mean it worked
22:34
Speaker 1: like it rained so much or not? It worked awesome.
22:37
Speaker 1: They killed people China. UM did their bid to control
22:41
Speaker 1: the weather by dissipating clouds by impregnating them with silver
22:46
Speaker 1: eyedie cloud seating, and apparently we're doing it. We're using
22:50
Speaker 1: this to UM to control climate change as well. The
22:53
Speaker 1: problem is if you have too much particulate matter, uh,
22:57
Speaker 1: it's going to spread out and the water droplets that
23:00
Speaker 1: are going to be attracted to it are going to
23:02
Speaker 1: be very small because there's maybe one piece of particular
23:06
Speaker 1: matter for every water droplet, rather than one piece for
23:09
Speaker 1: every million water droplets, which are going to form big
23:12
Speaker 1: fat rain drops. Right. So therefore that leads to desertification.
23:18
Speaker 1: Did that make sense? Okay? I wonder since bacteria can
23:22
Speaker 1: serve as a particulate I wonder if potentially you could
23:27
Speaker 1: have disease rained down upon a nation. I would imagine,
23:31
Speaker 1: So there's a movie platform you right there, buddy, Hey,
23:34
Speaker 1: it's going on all around us right now, is it? Sure.
23:38
Speaker 1: All right, so let's talk about what else they do
23:39
Speaker 1: to the Earth. They serve as a bar area for
23:42
Speaker 1: heat both coming in and out. They absorb about of
23:46
Speaker 1: the heat and they also reflect about of the heat
23:50
Speaker 1: back to the Sun. Well, it depends. If you have
23:52
Speaker 1: low level clouds, you're going to have a cooler temperature
23:56
Speaker 1: because low level clouds are the best at reflect think
24:00
Speaker 1: solar energy back into space. If you have high level clouds,
24:04
Speaker 1: you're going to especially at night, you're going to have
24:06
Speaker 1: warmer temperatures because the highest level clouds are the best
24:09
Speaker 1: that acting as a blanket around the Earth. Yeah, they
24:12
Speaker 1: do both. They absorb some, they bounce some back, and
24:15
Speaker 1: then once it passes through that it can contain it
24:18
Speaker 1: within the Earth. On that within the Earth, but between
24:20
Speaker 1: the Earth's surface and the clouds like a blanket. That's
24:24
Speaker 1: exactly right, which is why a cloudless night is always
24:27
Speaker 1: colder than a cloudy night, because that solar radiation that's
24:31
Speaker 1: reached the Earth is shooting right back into space, so
24:35
Speaker 1: that that's not endlessly interesting to you. Still. Yeah, Okay,
24:39
Speaker 1: I wish it was, Chuck, I really wish it was.
24:41
Speaker 1: How about that Illuminati though, Yeah, there's that uh should
24:45
Speaker 1: we talk about weird clouds? Oh? I think we should. Man,
24:49
Speaker 1: we've got contrails, which I thought was just like literally
24:55
Speaker 1: coming out of the exhaustive jets. It's actually that's vapor
25:00
Speaker 1: shot out by jet exhaust that's freezing or condensing into
25:04
Speaker 1: these little vapor clouds. And we won't get into the
25:07
Speaker 1: whole kim trail thing. Those are different. Well, that's just
25:10
Speaker 1: the whole controversy there. Actually, Maddie's in here, and uh,
25:15
Speaker 1: if you want to know about kim trails, they have
25:17
Speaker 1: a stuff they don't want you to know about kim trails.
25:19
Speaker 1: So instead of us flopping, we'll just direct you that way. Um,
25:25
Speaker 1: lenticular clouds. Did you look up some of these picture wise? Uh?
25:30
Speaker 1: I wish you hadn't asked me that. I wish I
25:32
Speaker 1: would have printed them out. Lenticular clouds and cap clouds.
25:35
Speaker 1: Lenticular are layered and very swirly and it looks they
25:39
Speaker 1: look like a funnel shaped stack of pancakes. Very cool looking.
25:44
Speaker 1: Cap clouds look like a big disk on top of
25:47
Speaker 1: a mountain, like kind of sitting on the nose of
25:49
Speaker 1: the mountain. I've seen that one before. That's really cool.
25:52
Speaker 1: There's actually a really cool phenomena I can't remember what
25:54
Speaker 1: it's called, where if you're at a high enough altitude
25:58
Speaker 1: and it's cloudy, you your shadow is cast upward, oh
26:02
Speaker 1: really yeah, rather than downward, and it makes you look
26:06
Speaker 1: like this huge giant, like walking through the sky because
26:09
Speaker 1: usually it's so cloudy that you can't see any breaks
26:11
Speaker 1: in it, and it just looks like you're this huge
26:14
Speaker 1: thing just walking across the sky above you, so the
26:18
Speaker 1: shadow is above. I can't remember what it's called, but
26:22
Speaker 1: it's a pretty neat effect. I did a hike one
26:24
Speaker 1: time in Big sur where we hiked up above the
26:27
Speaker 1: cloud line and it's it's like when you fly above
26:32
Speaker 1: it in a jet, except you're walking and you feel
26:34
Speaker 1: like you're I mean, you can see nothing. It's weird.
26:37
Speaker 1: It's like you're on top of the world. That's pretty sweet. Yeah,
26:40
Speaker 1: it is very sweet. That's a heck of a hike, man. Yeah,
26:43
Speaker 1: well they were they were low clouds in pixer. It
26:46
Speaker 1: wasn't like the handies or anything like that. I mean,
26:48
Speaker 1: it was a good hike helicopter exactly. Um, then I'm
26:54
Speaker 1: sorry the mamatics clouds. If you live in New York City,
26:57
Speaker 1: last year or if you have an Internet connection, you
27:00
Speaker 1: might have seen these pictures of mo Maddis clouds, and
27:02
Speaker 1: they are It doesn't happen often at all. That's why
27:05
Speaker 1: people were like, what's going on in New York now
27:08
Speaker 1: or being attacked? But they're big billowy balls all clumped together,
27:12
Speaker 1: like hanging down from the underside of a cloud. And
27:16
Speaker 1: that's why they're called mom Maddist clouds because it means
27:19
Speaker 1: like utter or breast. Oh really, yeah, that makes sense.
27:22
Speaker 1: And yeah and there I mean the there's the internets
27:25
Speaker 1: allowsy with pictures of it last year, really cool looking
27:27
Speaker 1: because the sunset hit it at the right time and
27:29
Speaker 1: it was like these billowy fireballs. It looked like it's
27:32
Speaker 1: very intimidating. Cool but no harm, no fireballs, really no,
27:36
Speaker 1: it's just clouds, just clouds, just ences. Uh you want
27:41
Speaker 1: to cover any of those other ones? Well, the knock
27:43
Speaker 1: de lucent cloud is pretty interesting. I have to say,
27:45
Speaker 1: all right, there's this. If you are on Earth, you
27:48
Speaker 1: would call it a knock de lucent cloud. If you
27:50
Speaker 1: are up in space looking down on it, you'd call
27:52
Speaker 1: it a polar mesospheric cloud. That's pretty interesting. This is
27:57
Speaker 1: a very rare cloud. Um that at twilight. The apparently
28:01
Speaker 1: the makeup of these clouds, uh there exists very high
28:05
Speaker 1: up in the atmosphere, makes them glow blue, which is
28:09
Speaker 1: unusual for clouds. And they actually think that these clouds
28:12
Speaker 1: are new. They're not, I don't want to say, they're
28:16
Speaker 1: not naturally occurring. They're not old. They haven't been around
28:20
Speaker 1: since any time before three, which happens to be the
28:25
Speaker 1: year that krakataw the volcano in Java, blew its top
28:32
Speaker 1: and that's when people first started seeing these clouds. Right
28:34
Speaker 1: after that happened, and apparently Krakataw um sent remember the
28:39
Speaker 1: volcano episode. Okay, what was that stuff called tefla, te tefra.
28:46
Speaker 1: It's sent Tefra as much as two D sixty two
28:50
Speaker 1: thousand feet into the air, which is eighty kilometers into
28:53
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, and apparently stayed there and started forming these clouds.
28:58
Speaker 1: And well, the weird thing is is they thought that
29:00
Speaker 1: this was just a temporary deal. But they've been around
29:02
Speaker 1: ever since, right, yeah, they have. And they also think
29:04
Speaker 1: that possibly pollution, meteoroids, and space shuttle activity are all
29:09
Speaker 1: contributing to them. The continued existence of noct de lucent clouds,
29:15
Speaker 1: which means shining at night. Yeah, these are cool looking.
29:18
Speaker 1: These look like um, they almost look like Nebula. They're
29:21
Speaker 1: sort of vainy looking and glowing, and uh, Nebula is
29:26
Speaker 1: like nothing more than a cloud in space, right, it's
29:28
Speaker 1: a space cloud. Yeah. And there's actually one called the
29:31
Speaker 1: Smith Cloud, which is enormous and it's headed for the
29:33
Speaker 1: Milky Way galaxy and when that, when it impacts in
29:38
Speaker 1: twenty million years, it's going to put on quite a
29:41
Speaker 1: show in the sky apparently, and it will rain down. Yeah,
29:47
Speaker 1: well we won't be around to see that. There's clouds.
29:50
Speaker 1: I thought it was gonna be cooler. It wasn't. I'm
29:53
Speaker 1: sorry everybody. I thought it was cool. If you want
29:56
Speaker 1: to learn more about clouds, including a little shout out
30:00
Speaker 1: to the Cloud Appreciation Society, you can type in clouds
30:04
Speaker 1: at the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
30:07
Speaker 1: It'll bring that up. And of course, now it's time
30:09
Speaker 1: for listener mail. Probably the most interesting part of this podcast.
30:15
Speaker 1: It's definitely the most heart warning. Okay, uh, Josh, I'm
30:18
Speaker 1: gonna call this. We're thinking about you, Jody, Hi, Josh
30:24
Speaker 1: and Chuck and Jerry. I know you don't do this
30:26
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Much because you get way too many requests,
30:28
Speaker 1: which is true, but this is we had to make
30:30
Speaker 1: an exception here. This from Brendon, by the way, and
30:33
Speaker 1: Brendon's fiance Jody, whose nickname is Frankie, has a rare
30:39
Speaker 1: form of leukemia and she's undergoing treatment for that right now.
30:42
Speaker 1: The past couple of weeks have been really rough because
30:44
Speaker 1: she's been really really sick, like to the point of
30:47
Speaker 1: not being able to get out of bed. And unfortunately
30:50
Speaker 1: I am over a thousand miles away finishing school, and
30:54
Speaker 1: she really doesn't have anyone around to take care of
30:56
Speaker 1: her at this point apart from the medical staff. Very sad.
31:00
Speaker 1: One of the few things that's helping her to stay
31:02
Speaker 1: sane while she is in bed trying not to be
31:04
Speaker 1: sick and resisting passing out from pain is your podcast.
31:08
Speaker 1: Your humor and unique fun information is a great distraction
31:11
Speaker 1: from all the stuff she has to deal with. And
31:13
Speaker 1: I cannot thank you enough for the quality show that
31:15
Speaker 1: you produce. I really really appreciate it. If you could
31:18
Speaker 1: somehow give her a shout out on the air, even
31:20
Speaker 1: it's very generic, Hello to anybody out there who is
31:25
Speaker 1: in pain hanging there, or if you could just plug
31:28
Speaker 1: the National Bone Marrow Registry at b the match dot
31:32
Speaker 1: org for something that would be cool. So we're going
31:35
Speaker 1: to get specific and say, Jody A k A, Frankie
31:38
Speaker 1: and U talk, hang in there, and I told Brendan
31:41
Speaker 1: to keep us informed on Frankie's progress. And you guys
31:47
Speaker 1: are getting married and there's you know, a lot to
31:49
Speaker 1: look forward to. So I hope you get better soon
31:51
Speaker 1: and listen to us while you're getting well and you
31:54
Speaker 1: can getting hitched and getting hitched. I want to hear
31:57
Speaker 1: about your wedding days. Want to hear about So that's
31:59
Speaker 1: for joy. That was nice, Chuck, Hey, Jody A k A,
32:04
Speaker 1: Frankie and Brendan and Brendan, and as Brendan suggested, everybody
32:09
Speaker 1: out there who is in a lot of pain and listening, Uh,
32:13
Speaker 1: it's possible that you're in a lot of pain because
32:15
Speaker 1: you're listening. But if you've tried that and you're steal
32:17
Speaker 1: in pain and you've gone back to listening, hey, and
32:20
Speaker 1: hang in there with thinking of you. Yeah, we'll have
32:22
Speaker 1: to tell him that this is going to be at
32:23
Speaker 1: the end of the Clouds episode because he probably would
32:25
Speaker 1: make it through it ordinary. No, No, that's a good point, Chow,
32:27
Speaker 1: hang in there, listen to it. It's gonna be it's
32:30
Speaker 1: gonna pay off there in the end. Well, let's see.
32:32
Speaker 1: If you have a pretty cool picture of a cloud,
32:35
Speaker 1: we want to see it. Go post it on Facebook.
32:38
Speaker 1: How about that? Uh? We have a Facebook page Facebook
32:42
Speaker 1: dot com slash stuff. You should know we also tweet
32:45
Speaker 1: s y s K podcast uh. And then you can
32:48
Speaker 1: also send us the traditional email at stuff podcast at
32:53
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com for moral on this and
32:59
Speaker 1: that's of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
33:02
Speaker 1: To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast
33:05
Speaker 1: icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The
33:08
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today
33:11
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33:17
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