Hi, Steemers!
Today I will tell you why some #clouds are snow-white and some of them are dark as night.
While #BabyRi is sleeping, I have some free time to post by myself :) So I was thinking of the possible interesting topics to write about. I want them to be interesting for you and for me and for my baby. Of course, I want them to be easy-reading, useful and to bring us fun and knowledge as well. So, I decide to write short articles about different things which we should know or we used to know but because of so much #information surrounds and so fast progress we could forget or just interesting #facts. Plus, I have small Baby and I should be ready for so interesting period of babies life when they always ask Why, in Russia we call it #Pochemuchka (Pochemy means Why). That's why the name of this blogs rubric will be Pochemuchka or Tell Me Why )))
So, Today I will remind us why some #clouds are snow-white and some of them are dark as night. I think, all of us learned this information when he was at school. But it is interesting to refresh in our memories, plus, I have refreshed this #knowledge by myself and have already told my 3 months old BabyRi this information, she has listened curiously.
Lets start.
Photo is made from our window, Kaliningrad, Russia
What Is A Cloud?
All clouds are a visible big mass of water (tiny water droplets and/or ice crystals floating in the sky). Sometimes the size of the cloud can reach some 10s of km, and by the wind this mass is moved above the Earth at different height (approximately from 0,5 till 30 km above Earth).
Due to the microscopic size its possible for the water droplets and ice crystals to stay in the air for a long time. But when they become bigger gathering together they start to be larger and heavier and they come down and fall down from the cloud as a rainfall.
Photo is made from our window, Kaliningrad, Russia
How Do Clouds Form?
There are a lot of water around us, in the atmosphere, most of the time we don't see the water, cause the drops of water are too small to see, they turn into a gas - water vapor.
Every day 10s of tonnes of water vapor away from the oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and from the surface of Earth. 1stly this water stays close to the surface of Earth at warm atmosphere level.
Then, this warm air lifts up. As the water vapor goes higher in the sky, the air gets cooler. The cooler air causes the water droplets to start to stick to each other and look like bits of dust, ice or sea salt. The water vapor condenses into drops of water.
Due to the fact that the uplifted air is more evacuated than lower level which is closer to Earth surface, the water drops are not able to condense into a very big drops, so they stay at the #atmosphere as a visible mass of water droplets and/or ice crystals, and we call it a Cloud.
There are a lot of kinds of clouds, different forms and sizes.
Photo is made from our window, Kaliningrad, Russia
Why Are Some Clouds White And Some Others are Black?
When we see at the sky dark cloud coming to us we know that soon it will rain. There is a connection between a color of the cloud and its ability to make a rain from it.
The air at the clouds floating 6 and more km high in the sky is evacuated. That's why the sunshine goes through these clouds easily. The clouds scatter and reflect all the visible colors of light, which together give white light. In other words, when clouds are thin, they let a huge portion of the light through and they seem white. So, the clouds are white cause they reflect the white light from the sun.
Every object that transmits light, when it become thicker, it let less light go through. The thicker cloud is, the less light it transmits.
When the cloud goes lower, it becomes more grey, darker. It happens so because the air thickens, the water droplets gather together, as a result the drops become bigger, and for the sunshine it is already difficult to go through, it has to travel through a lot of drops before it goes out from the cloud. Clouds become more efficient at absorbing light, rather than scattering it. So, the clouds appear grey or dark grey because of the lack of sunlight passing through it. And the less light goes through, the darker clouds appear.
The cloud becomes heavier and it goes lower and lower. And finally the drops are so large, and because of gravity they fall to Earth. We call this process of falling water rain. Depends on the temperature of the air the water may form snowflakes, freezing rain, sleet. The condensation lasts until the cloud becomes thinner and goes upper levels of the atmosphere.
When we see a fog, we see a visible mass consisting of cloud water droplets or ice crystals floating in the air at or near the Earth's surface. So, fog is a type of low-lying cloud )) (we are talking about air fog, another fog can be done from smoke of cars, plants and so on).
That's all I've wanted to tell you about Clouds today, thank you for your attention and I hope It was useful and interesting post.
Have a nice day and see you!