NEW CLOUDS, NEW LIFE, NEW BEAUTY

A new kind of cloud is up for review in just a few months (March 2014), awaiting formal recognition by the United Nations World Meteorological Organization. The wild and wooly Undulatus Asperatus cloud is a stunner. It appears in heavy skies with a rolling pattern that resembles "roughened waves."

The cloud type was originally discovered in 2006 by, Jane Wiggins of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She took a photograph, shared it, and it went viral. Since then people around the world have spotted these clouds and added their photos to the catalog.

Wiggins is one of 32,000 members of the Cloud Appreciation Society, an organization focused on the study of and the love for clouds. They are passionate about searching for, capturing, and sharing images of clouds.  The Undulatus Asperatus, while it has existed for eons, is an exciting find now. The CAS has been pushing hard for years to make it official, but the WMO reviews happen at few and far between times. The last time a new type of cloud was recognized was in 1951.

If the Undulatus Asperatus does find itself finally inducted into the WMO Atlas, it will be be the world's first crowd-sourced cloud discovery.

Photo: Timo Newton-Syms. Noctilucent clouds over Helsinki Finland

This summer, a rare cloud makes a surprise early appearance. Noctilucent clouds form in the summer when water molecules mix with smoke left behind from meteor trails. They usually start in mid June, but this summer they arrived at the beginning of the month in their earliest recorded appearance and possibly their earliest appearance ever.

The clouds seem to shine with their own light in the night sky, and while they were once seen only in the north, they have in recent years been making progress as far south as Colorado. Cora Randall, of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, believes that the changes in the behavior of these clouds are the result of changing atmospheric composition, most notably an increase in methane gas.

Photo: Courtesy of The App Register

NASA is using the Cloup Appreciation Society’s CloudSpotter App to study how clouds affect the Earth’s overall climate. To do this they use CERES, the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System instrument to measure temperatures and sunlight reflected into space.

The presence of clouds alters temperature readings and confuses the satellite data. For example, if clouds are covering snowy regions, its hard to tell what’s what. The CloudSpotter app allows the researchers to calibrate the instrument and check for inconsistencies in their data by checking records of where clouds were at various times.

The CloudSpotter App is lots of fun to use besides helping scientists figure out our universe. You can identify all sorts of clouds, take photos of the beauties you discover, and share them with your fellow cloud-loving friends. Check it out.

Photo: Jeffrey Goh. View of the Milky Way from Pantai Kelanang, Malaysia

A mind-boggling new proposition has emerged, thanks to the nature of clouds. More than 60 billion planets in the Milky Way Galaxy just might support life! And that’s not even counting the rest of the universe!

Life, as we know it, exists in a “sweet spot,” where water exists in both liquid and gaseous forms. That means that the climate temperature has to fall within the right range. And that means, there has to be clouds.

Previous modeling techniques for predicting the presence of life on other planets didn’t factor in the presence of clouds. Now, using a new kind of 3D model, simulating the way moisture moves through the entire atmosphere around the planet.

These new simulations show that if there is any surface water on the planet, water clouds result. The simulations further show that cloud behavior has a significant cooling effect on the inner portion of the habitable zone, enabling planets to sustain water on their surfaces much closer to their sun.

Photo: Courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. A red dwarf star flaring.

Research published on July 10, 2013 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters claims that the habitable zone for planets around red dwarfs may be far larger than previously thought because clouds can enable planets closer to their sun to sustain water on their surfaces. Clouds on these planets can provide heating and cooling effects by either trapping heat reflecting off of the planet or reflecting heat from the sun away from the planet.

Astronomers observing with the James Webb Telescope will be able to test the validity of these findings by measuring the temperature of the planet at different points in its orbit.

Photo: Mikko Saari. Cirrus Clouds

Scientists in Germany at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have discovered a mechanism for manipulating the reflectiveness of cirrus clouds. Clouds in lab settings were shown to exhibit a 100% increase in the amount of ice crystals they possessed when they were shot with a laser. The results of these studies have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This increase in ice increases the clouds reflectiveness as well, which may have potential for heating or cooling areas of the earth using clouds.

Read about the beauty of Clouds all this week, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including Head in Clouds, Feet on Ground and The Wild Beauty of Clouds.

Get busy and enter the BN Competitions, Our theme this week is Beautiful Clouds. Send in your images and ideas. Deadline is 9.22.13.