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Speaker 2: Oh hey, it's that lady who's both a stranger and
Speaker 2: also your internet dad. Ali Ward back with a light
Speaker 2: and a fluffy episode of ologies. Okay, this is a
Speaker 2: big one. It has been looming overhead since the first
Speaker 2: time I encountered a list of possible ologies. This is
Speaker 2: over a decade ago, and I remember seeing mythology and
Speaker 2: thinking immediately like who does that? Who is one? And
Speaker 2: it was on my mind like a puffy thought bubble
Speaker 2: over my head so much that if you listen to
Speaker 2: the ending theme music, you will hear meteorology apology, so
Speaker 2: of course you know I'm pumped as hell to get
Speaker 2: my head into the clouds for this. But first, per usual,
Speaker 2: thank you to everyone on Patreon supporting the show, and
Speaker 2: to everyone sporting ologies gear from ologiesmarch dot com. And
Speaker 2: if you want to contribute for zero dollars, you can
Speaker 2: just make sure you're subscribed. Just do that. You can
Speaker 2: text like three friends tell them hey, listen to this
Speaker 2: dumb show. You can rate it on Apple Podcasts. You
Speaker 2: can leave a review which keeps it among the NPR
Speaker 2: beasts at the top of the charts. And also, you know,
Speaker 2: I read them all because I'm a creep. And this
Speaker 2: week thank you to alsa O two one nine for
Speaker 2: this one. They said, this podcast is insanely interesting, even
Speaker 2: when the topic is something I don't typically have an
Speaker 2: interest in. Super smart people making super complicated information much
Speaker 2: more accessible. Hopefully these nerds will rule the world because
Speaker 2: they clearly have their shit together more than I do.
Speaker 3: I doubt that.
Speaker 2: Also, two one nine you left a review. You've got
Speaker 2: it together and I appreciate it. Okay, nephology is the
Speaker 2: study of clouds. Okay, this is very much a real word.
Speaker 2: It can mean a scientist of clouds or just someone
Speaker 2: who likes to gaze up and look at the clouds
Speaker 2: and would hug a cloud if they could, and is
Speaker 2: like clouds are tight. Now nef comes from the Greek
Speaker 2: for cloud, straight up. But it is not to be
Speaker 2: confused with the objects of nephrology, which has an R
Speaker 2: in it that means the kidneys, your p organs, which
Speaker 2: we will explore another time, I promise.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So this ologist, this nephologist I happened upon on Twitter
Speaker 2: and I found out she was based in La a
Speaker 2: million deja horns, and there's a pretty tiny number of
Speaker 2: professional cloud scientists in the world. She says that conferences
Speaker 2: are like family reunions, and she was like, hit me
Speaker 2: up for that cloud chat. Anytime I was thrilled, I
Speaker 2: was nervous. She came over to my house just this
Speaker 2: past week, just this past Friday. This is a lightning
Speaker 2: fast turnaround, folks. We sat on my couch with my
Speaker 2: sleeping indoor raccoon, Grammy, just inches away, and we looked
Speaker 2: out of the atmosphere while we discussed what is a cloud,
Speaker 2: what are they called? And why are chemtrails real? What
Speaker 2: ancient weather adages? Can we actually rely on should you
Speaker 2: chase storms, diamond rain and clouds shaped like everything under
Speaker 2: the sun, along with which emojis are the most annoying
Speaker 2: with atmospheric scientist professional cloud looker at her and nephologist
Speaker 2: doctor Rachel Storer. These are just like microphones. Just told him,
Speaker 2: like this closest yet. Do you know that you are
Speaker 2: a nefologist?
Speaker 3: I didn't until you said that word.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask if people call you a
Speaker 2: nephrologist a lot, but they don't even call you anphologist.
Speaker 3: Oh, nobody calls me that.
Speaker 4: No, some of my friends call me a cloud doctor,
Speaker 4: which I use that one for some of my like
Speaker 4: social media and stuff.
Speaker 3: I just think that sounds neat.
Speaker 2: I call a doctor cloud. How long have you been
Speaker 2: studying clouds or how long? When did you? When did
Speaker 2: this start?
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, well, I mean I've kind of always loved storms,
Speaker 4: you know, Like I grew up in Pennsylvania and we
Speaker 4: would get great thunderstorms in the summer and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: and like my mom and I would sit out in
Speaker 4: the porch and stick your feet out in the rain,
Speaker 4: and you know, count between the thunder and the lightning
Speaker 4: and everything. So I've always been fascinated by it. I remember,
Speaker 4: but like when I was I was probably twelve or
Speaker 4: something like that when Twister came out. Oh Twister, I
Speaker 4: saw that at theaters.
Speaker 2: Oh nice cow. I thought it was Lilia. We got cows.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I think, like a lot of people in
Speaker 4: my field around my age, like that was one of
Speaker 4: those like, Oh my gosh, this movie is amazing. And
Speaker 4: then right around that time, TLC used to have all
Speaker 4: these about tornadoes and tornado chasing and all this stuff,
Speaker 4: and I was like, what, like this could be my
Speaker 4: job is to like study storms.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So yeah, My undergrad was in meteorology, and then I
Speaker 4: did atmospheric science for grad school and I've been doing
Speaker 4: that ever since.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Okay, how much of a cloud badass
Speaker 2: is Rachel Well? She is an author on paper such
Speaker 2: as effects of convective microphysics, paramidization on large scale cloud
Speaker 2: hydrological cycle and radiate a budget in tropical and mid
Speaker 2: latitude convected regions. And she got her bachelor's in meteorology
Speaker 2: from Penn State, which is a big weather school, and
Speaker 2: did a summer project about aerosols. What the hell is
Speaker 2: an aerosol? You're asking, well, I asked Google for us.
Speaker 2: And it's a teeny tiny thing that floats in the
Speaker 2: air or some other gas. And it can be a
Speaker 2: solid or a liquid like dust or water, or pollutants
Speaker 2: or geyser mist or snot droplets, which, by the way,
Speaker 2: the latter are called bio aerosols. So if someone sneezes
Speaker 2: on you and apologize to say aerosol, good man, just kidding,
Speaker 2: that's disgusting. Please cover your mouth, no offense. Now, she
Speaker 2: got a degree in meteorology, but there are lots of
Speaker 2: topics under the meteorology umbrella. If you will, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: And she ended up getting her master's and PhD in
Speaker 2: atmospheric science in Colorado, And part of that was just
Speaker 2: a really lucky link between that summer project she.
Speaker 4: Did, and so when I went to Colorado State for
Speaker 4: grad school, it turned out that the woman who I
Speaker 4: was working with, she was doing research into how aerosol's
Speaker 4: affect storms.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, living in la we get like four clouds a year.
Speaker 2: I know, how do you feel about that? It's really sad.
Speaker 4: I've gotten to the point where I can get like
Speaker 4: really psyched by like drizzle, you know.
Speaker 2: Your standards just go lower.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you gotta take what you can get.
Speaker 2: Just side note for context. LA does not have a
Speaker 2: lot of clouds. Let's get to the nitty gritty. What
Speaker 2: the fuck is a cloud? What is it?
Speaker 4: It's water in the air, it is It is a
Speaker 4: lot of water in the air. Okay, So if you
Speaker 4: like look at just a regular cloud, I think I'm
Speaker 4: going to probably get the numbers wrong, but it's literally
Speaker 4: can be like a ton of water in a cloud.
Speaker 3: But the droplets are just so so.
Speaker 4: Small, and you know, they just can like hang out
Speaker 4: there in the air and the light reflects off of them,
Speaker 4: and there's enough of them that we see it as
Speaker 4: white or gray or whatever.
Speaker 2: So you are looking at a cloud and you're like,
Speaker 2: it's puffy, it's light, it's in the air, and it's
Speaker 2: just an absolute shit ton of water yeah, above your head.
Speaker 2: And the reason it's a cloud and not a puddle
Speaker 2: is I don't know.
Speaker 4: Well, so all the droplets are really small, I mean
Speaker 4: literally like tens of microns across it is a cloud droplet,
Speaker 4: And so it's just so light, it has so little
Speaker 4: mass that just like the little bits of air moving
Speaker 4: up and around are enough to sort of keep it
Speaker 4: in place, and so it's you know, it's not until
Speaker 4: the drop gets big enough, until it forms like a
Speaker 4: rain droplet, that it's sort of heavy enough to fall
Speaker 4: on it.
Speaker 2: Zwe So there is a tipping point obviously in clouds
Speaker 2: where there's enough water vapor that condenses, where the droplets
Speaker 2: can't be buoyed by the air underneath it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sort of like eventually there's just enough water and
Speaker 4: you know, the more water you have in a cloud,
Speaker 4: the more the water is gonna bump against other water
Speaker 4: droplets and they start to stick together. And you know,
Speaker 4: water vaple condense directly onto water droplets and they'll grow
Speaker 4: as long as it's moist enough, and then yeah, eventually
Speaker 4: the drops will get big enough that they'll fall.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so let's talk about shapes of clouds.
Speaker 4: Okay, the sort of two main type set are stratus
Speaker 4: and cumulus, And so the sort of difference there is
Speaker 4: that cumulus clouds are convective, which means that they form
Speaker 4: because there's air that's sort of warmer than its surroundings
Speaker 4: and it bubbles up like like you would have bubbles
Speaker 4: and boiling water or whatever. You just you have air
Speaker 4: that bubbles up, and so that's sort of why they
Speaker 4: tend to be like poofy and bumpy on the top
Speaker 4: and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Sky's always has a little fluffy clouds.
Speaker 4: And those are the ones that tend to if you're
Speaker 4: gonna have storms that those are convective clouds, or you'll
Speaker 4: just get like the little sort of one of my
Speaker 4: friends calls them the Simpsons clouds.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was gonna ask about that, Like, it's funny.
Speaker 2: If I ever see a really puffy cumulus cloud, I
Speaker 2: instantly think of this.
Speaker 4: Up.
Speaker 2: So those are the puffy, fluffy cotton candy clouds or
Speaker 2: the cumulus. And then there's this stratus.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so stratus literally the word like strata means layer.
Speaker 4: So stratus clouds are generally layered, which means that they're
Speaker 4: sort of forming from sort of a larger area that's
Speaker 4: rising a lot more slowly. So like over the ocean,
Speaker 4: where things are generally sort of similar everywhere, then you
Speaker 4: tend to get like strata cumulus over the ocean. Or
Speaker 4: if it's like a really rainy, drizzly day a lot
Speaker 4: of times that will be like there'll be like a
Speaker 4: front coming through that's sort of larger, and so there's
Speaker 4: you know, a big air mass that's just sort of
Speaker 4: moving slowly up and so you get sort of these flat,
Speaker 4: sort of layered clouds.
Speaker 2: Oh so it's like a pancake is a stratus cloud
Speaker 2: and a cumulus is a muffin. Yes, okay, yeah, I'll
Speaker 2: take it. And then I guess maybe would a strato
Speaker 2: cumulus be like a waffle?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: Okay, why not? So hungry? And so then okay, what
Speaker 2: are some other types of clouds? Like what is a
Speaker 2: like a pyroclastic cloud or a lenticular? Like what are
Speaker 2: all these terms?
Speaker 4: So pyrocumulus clouds are really cool and also terrifying and
Speaker 4: kind of sad because they're what happens when you have
Speaker 4: fire pyro Right, So pyrocumulus is basically when you get
Speaker 4: so much heat from the fire that it forces convection
Speaker 4: on its own ps.
Speaker 2: Why should anyone care about the meaning of convection when
Speaker 2: it's not being used to describe an oven that's making
Speaker 2: me cookies. Well, convection just means a circular current or
Speaker 2: gas or liquid is less dense and it rises, and
Speaker 2: then the cooler stuff is more dense and it falls.
Speaker 2: And this happens in weather patterns a bunch because the
Speaker 2: surface of the earth is warm, so it heats air,
Speaker 2: that air rises, and then the cooler air above it
Speaker 2: falls like that gets heated by the earth that rises,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, which, let's be honest, is almost
Speaker 2: as cool as cookies. That's pretty interesting. Now. Pyrocumulus or
Speaker 2: phlammogenitus clouds have terrible names, but they look like fluffy, puffy, billowy,
Speaker 2: pillowy steam clouds.
Speaker 4: I'm talking steamy and so you get these are like
Speaker 4: really strong, like really crazy colorflowery, convectiony sort of clouds
Speaker 4: that form. I mean, I've seen them here over the
Speaker 4: mountains sometimes occasionally when we've gone bad fires. And if
Speaker 4: you look at like right now, if you look at
Speaker 4: like satellite imagery over Australia, you can see pyrocumulus clouds.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, what about a lenticular cloud?
Speaker 4: But plenticular clouds are awesome, Okay, we don't get them
Speaker 4: a lot around here. Sometimes if you drive a little
Speaker 4: bit farther east towards the mountains, you can see them.
Speaker 4: But a lenticular cloud is a wave cloud, so it
Speaker 4: forms when air is forced over a mountain and the air.
Speaker 4: So if the air atmosphere in general is kind of stable,
Speaker 4: then when air goes up, it'll sort of go back
Speaker 4: down again, and it'll go sort of up and down
Speaker 4: in like this like large wave, and in the parts
Speaker 4: where goes up, a cloud will form if you know,
Speaker 4: conditions are right, and.
Speaker 3: So you get sort of this.
Speaker 4: There are these people call them like ufo clouds. A
Speaker 4: lot of times they have almost this upho shape to
Speaker 4: them because they just form in the little top part
Speaker 4: of this wave, and so you get all these really
Speaker 4: cool and sometimes they build up on top of each other.
Speaker 4: When I lived in Colorado, we used to get the
Speaker 4: most amazing lenticular clouds. And also, like you if you
Speaker 4: ever look at like pictures of like Mountaineer and Washington,
Speaker 4: sometimes they'll form like on top of the mountain and
Speaker 4: it'll get this like a really cool like layered It's
Speaker 4: hard to describe with just words, but.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm going to look it up. Yeah, y'all, are
Speaker 2: you sitting, Have you seen a lenticular cloud? They look
Speaker 2: like sky pancakes or UFOs or like stacks of hanuka gelt.
Speaker 2: And the word lenticular comes from lens shaped like a
Speaker 2: bulging disc of a lens. Also the word lens. Are
Speaker 2: you even capable of dealing with this right now? I
Speaker 2: don't think you are. It comes from the Latin for lentil,
Speaker 2: So these giant disc like clouds are like big lentil pillows.
Speaker 2: And I'll be honest, I think I just crossed the
Speaker 2: line to wanting to join the Cloud Appreciation Society, which
Speaker 2: is a real thing. And side note, they published a
Speaker 2: book called Cloud Spotting, which is just a bunch of
Speaker 2: cool cloud photos and descriptions. So if you too have
Speaker 2: ever stopped to snap a photo of a cloud, there's
Speaker 2: a place for us on this earth. How many cloud
Speaker 2: pictures do you have on your phone? Like? So many?
Speaker 3: Oh? So many? Really?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah?
Speaker 2: Do you when you're driving have you ever pulled over
Speaker 2: to take pictures of weather?
Speaker 4: I mean, I've been storm chasing, which is a whole
Speaker 4: different story in terms of driving and pulling over and
Speaker 4: looking at weather.
Speaker 2: Wait, when did you go storm chasing?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: When I live in Colorado?
Speaker 2: But what does that involve?
Speaker 3: Chasing storms?
Speaker 2: Do you know if it's going to be safe to
Speaker 2: do so? Are you are you running? You're running obviously
Speaker 2: toward it, not away from right toward it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, ideally you sort of place yourself in the
Speaker 4: right positions that it will like go just past you
Speaker 4: so that you can watch it.
Speaker 2: And does that involve lightning and thunder and also rain?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, everything?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean ideally tornadoes, but it's hard to find
Speaker 4: a tornado.
Speaker 2: Ideally tornadoes. That sentence not said often.
Speaker 4: I'm sure, Well, you know we're sort of a special breed. No,
Speaker 4: what aren't no other people who study clouds? What are
Speaker 4: you guys doing when you're studying clouds? What does it
Speaker 4: mean to be a cloud doctor? My research specifically is,
Speaker 4: like I said, on sort of storms cumulatimbus deep convective clouds.
Speaker 3: However you want to name them.
Speaker 4: And I look at a lot of like basic things
Speaker 4: about how much water is moving around in the storm
Speaker 4: within the sort of main updraft of the storm and
Speaker 4: then out of the top into the anvil clouds, and
Speaker 4: trying to understand how the environment impacts that. So if
Speaker 4: it's you know, if it's warmer, or if it's moisture,
Speaker 4: and like certain layers of the atmosphere, how does that
Speaker 4: feedback onto how the storm behaves?
Speaker 2: Now, does that help people understand just general meteorology and
Speaker 2: like weather prediction.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's sort of it's it's sort of this
Speaker 4: basic fundamental stuff that I'm into, which is for me
Speaker 4: just I love to answer the questions about it. And
Speaker 4: then yeah, ideally if I learned something worthwhile, then it
Speaker 4: could help make models better for prediction or for climate
Speaker 4: models or whatever.
Speaker 2: Do you trust forecasts?
Speaker 3: Yeah you do?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, our forecasts are actually really good out to
Speaker 4: a few days, and they've gotten you know, there's specific
Speaker 4: ways people score them and stuff like that, and they've
Speaker 4: gotten better over the years, even like if you look
Speaker 4: at like, I don't know, something like twenty years ago,
Speaker 4: like a fort day forecast now is as good as
Speaker 4: a three day forecast was then or something like that.
Speaker 4: Like we've gotten even better as we've gotten better models
Speaker 4: and more compute power and things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned nimbus and anvil clouds.
Speaker 3: What are those?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So nimbus means rain, Oh it does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never knew that. I did not know that. Okay, Wow,
Speaker 2: that's that's amazing.
Speaker 4: Okay, So cumulo nimbus is like a thunderstorm basically. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's and then anvil clouds are so literally like the
Speaker 4: top of the troposphere is called the tropopause, and then
Speaker 4: above that is the stratosphere, and that layer of that
Speaker 4: transition is really really stable, so air that goes up
Speaker 4: can't really go farther than that. And so when you
Speaker 4: have a storm cloud that goes up, it goes to
Speaker 4: the tropopause, and the air doesn't have anywhere to go.
Speaker 4: The clouds don't have anywhere to go, and so they
Speaker 4: spread out and that's where and it's they're called anvil
Speaker 4: clouds because if you look at the cheape of them
Speaker 4: where they sort of like peek out and point out or.
Speaker 3: Whatever, they look sort of like an anvil. Oh my god, eh.
Speaker 2: Okay, quick aside. I looked them up, and these thunderstorms
Speaker 2: do in fact look like anvils. And their full name
Speaker 2: is cumulonimbus incus, and the cumulo means heaped, so they're
Speaker 2: like a bunch of heaps of whipped cream, and the
Speaker 2: nimbus means rainstorm and incas in Latin, just means anville.
Speaker 2: So when this rising air hits the tropopause, that's the
Speaker 2: boundary between the lowest level of our atmosphere and the
Speaker 2: next level stratosphere. So the cloud hits that, and it's like,
Speaker 2: oh shit, shoot, that's a ceiling. Okay, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: casually fan out. I'm gonna act normal. Hopefully nobody noticed.
Speaker 2: It doesn't even know how cool it is. How does
Speaker 2: a cloud even form?
Speaker 4: You need the sort of basics that you need our
Speaker 4: moisture and something for the moisture to condense onto, and
Speaker 4: you need rising motion. So if you have air that's
Speaker 4: rising for some reason, like for a convective cloud, it's
Speaker 4: because you have you know, sort of warm air that
Speaker 4: gets like buoyant, it's warmed than they are around it.
Speaker 4: Or like I said, if you have air that's moving
Speaker 4: over front or over a mountain, then when the air
Speaker 4: moves up, as air goes up, the pressure goes down
Speaker 4: and therefore the air gets colder. That's like ideal gas
Speaker 4: la basic sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: The ideal gas los side note is an equation and
Speaker 2: it's PV equals NRT. Now p is the pressure of
Speaker 2: the gas times the volume taken up by the gas,
Speaker 2: and those multiplied equal its temperature times the gas constant
Speaker 2: times the number of moles of the gas. What's my point?
Speaker 2: My point is a professional mythologist does all kinds of
Speaker 2: computer modeling and physics and stuff on a whiteboard and
Speaker 2: doesn't just get to stare at the sky and say,
Speaker 2: it's a chill fucking cloud.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: It's funny that something so beautiful that we see every
Speaker 2: day is so complicated, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: And that's part of what I love about it, right,
Speaker 4: I'm like, Okay, due point, saturation, vapor pressure.
Speaker 3: You don't want to hear these things.
Speaker 4: Those are great, those are great points. Okay, So you've
Speaker 4: heard the due point. So the due point is the
Speaker 4: temperature at which water would condense given the amount of
Speaker 4: moisture that's currently in the air. Right, So the higher
Speaker 4: the due point, the more humid it is.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: So as you raise air, it gets cooler, and so
Speaker 4: eventually it'll get to where it equals the due point
Speaker 4: of that sort of bit of air that's rising, okay,
Speaker 4: and so at that point condensation can happen.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Okay, so quick recap. The due point is
Speaker 2: the temperature that water would start to condense, and a
Speaker 2: fifty degree due point is pretty comfy, but a seventy
Speaker 2: degree due point is just getting into swamp bottom territory. Now,
Speaker 2: living in La this due point info was new to me.
Speaker 2: I had not the foggiest idea. And when does something
Speaker 2: become a cloud if it's foggy? If you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, is fog a cloud?
Speaker 3: Foggy is a cloud?
Speaker 4: Fog is just a cloud that's touching the ground.
Speaker 3: Cool, literally all it is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, how far does it have to go before it's
Speaker 2: a cloud? Just above your head like it is a cloud?
Speaker 2: Is that a philosophical or a meteorological question?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's it's one of those like
Speaker 4: fuzzy things because if it's funny like I you know,
Speaker 4: if you fly through a cloud, right, like when are
Speaker 4: you in the cloud?
Speaker 3: And when are you not in the cloud?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Because there's like all these little water droplets and at
Speaker 4: some point it's enough that you can see it, but
Speaker 4: if you look at it with like a light r
Speaker 4: there's a lot more that you can't see because it's
Speaker 4: just too small or too sparse or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: So at what point is it a cloud versus not
Speaker 3: a cloud?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: It's not like there's weird hard boundaries, right, so you know,
Speaker 4: touching the ground versus not like you.
Speaker 3: Know, give a wiggle room.
Speaker 2: Okay, what is it like for you when you're flying
Speaker 2: and you fly through clouds and you like burst through
Speaker 2: and you're like not, ah, Like, what is is that
Speaker 2: always a more fun for you? Are you always like
Speaker 2: on the window seat? I like the window seat a lot.
Speaker 2: I try to I try to plan it depending on
Speaker 2: what time my flight is. Oh yeah, Like if if
Speaker 2: I'm flying in like the middle of the day, I'm
Speaker 2: going to try for the window seat for sure. If
Speaker 2: I'm like flying over the middle of the country so
Speaker 2: I can see some storms, otherwise I'll I'll do the
Speaker 2: aisle because.
Speaker 3: I like to bee a lot.
Speaker 2: I like I'm well hydrated. So if it's a nighttime thing.
Speaker 2: What Why do clouds cause so much turbulence?
Speaker 4: Because where there's clouds, it means that there's a lot
Speaker 4: of air moving around. It's sort of a chicken and
Speaker 4: egg thing because you know you're gonna have more clouds
Speaker 4: where there's air going up, but also clouds themselves because
Speaker 4: there's sort of evaporation and condensation happening. It's like you're
Speaker 4: going over little waves in the ocean almost right where
Speaker 4: if you if you are in a pocket of air
Speaker 4: that goes down pretty quickly, then the plane will get
Speaker 4: forced down a little bit right.
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen people during minor turbulence freaking out
Speaker 2: and you want to just be like, yo, I'm a
Speaker 2: cloud doctor. Is there a cloud doctor on this plane?
Speaker 2: You're like, I am, and it's gonna be fine.
Speaker 4: I am careful about whether I tell people what I
Speaker 4: do or not.
Speaker 3: Really sometimes on the plane.
Speaker 2: What kind of questions do strangers ask you the most?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: Well, I get like, I get like ridiculous, like conspiracy
Speaker 4: theory things like people are all about chem trails.
Speaker 3: There's something I believe in, calmly in keem trails. I
Speaker 3: have seen them.
Speaker 2: I know they're I've seen camtrails. Let's break it down.
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask you about that. I mean, cam
Speaker 2: trails are definitely chemicals that are being spread by the government. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to make us stupid, right, Yeah, they help they.
Speaker 4: Like read our minds and you know, yeah, they make
Speaker 4: us like docile.
Speaker 2: Oh cool, And that's what I thought. No, what people
Speaker 2: do think that about when they see contrails from jets?
Speaker 3: Right mm hmm yep.
Speaker 4: And then you'll see these you can go down a
Speaker 4: rabbit hole of like YouTube videos where people just like
Speaker 4: we'll post like any picture of a cloud that looks
Speaker 4: like at all weird, and they'll be like, see it's proof.
Speaker 2: And that's the cam trail.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: Do you look for faces in clouds or is that
Speaker 2: something that you abandoned as a child. Do you still
Speaker 2: look for u shapes and clouds.
Speaker 4: I don't really go out of my way too. I mean,
Speaker 4: if I see it, i'll you know, take note of
Speaker 4: it or whatever. But I tend to I mean I
Speaker 4: tend to just sort of like dare agog at them,
Speaker 4: you know, just like, oh, it's so pretty.
Speaker 2: So we sat on my couch staring at the sky
Speaker 2: which was hazy with stripy things in it. They were
Speaker 2: probably Stratus or cumulus. Right, what is the what are
Speaker 2: these today? These are Stratus?
Speaker 3: Those are serious?
Speaker 2: What the fuck is it?
Speaker 3: Cerrus? So serious? Is really high up? Basically? Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: So there's sort of like three kind of like levels
Speaker 4: that we sort of think about in terms of like
Speaker 4: the heights of the clouds or whatever. And so the
Speaker 4: higher up ones are serious, the middle ones are like Alto,
Speaker 4: so we have like Alto Stratus or whatever, and then
Speaker 4: the low ones are like just like the stratus or
Speaker 4: cumulus or you know, things like that.
Speaker 2: So you can tack on a prefix to tell you
Speaker 2: where in the sky it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean yeah, if you look at like the
Speaker 4: actual you could find like there's like a cloud appreciation
Speaker 4: society that has there's like all sorts of different Yeah.
Speaker 4: The names get like reach in terms of like how
Speaker 4: specific it gets for different kinds of clouds.
Speaker 3: I cannot keep track.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me pause for a minute just to
Speaker 2: tell you that she is not kidding. If you have
Speaker 2: ever stared into the mirror loathing yourself for not knowing
Speaker 2: what different cloud names mean, call your therapist and tell
Speaker 2: him you're healed, because guess what, you are not alone.
Speaker 2: Cloud names. They're numerous, and they're long, and they're confusing,
Speaker 2: like not even a rare professional nephologist can grasp them all.
Speaker 2: But I am here to lead us through the haze.
Speaker 2: So first off, let's all pour little fog juice on
Speaker 2: the ground for the late Luke Howard. He was a
Speaker 2: nineteenth century botanist turned meteorologist who conceived of this system
Speaker 2: of cloud nominenclature. The dude loved clouds and he published
Speaker 2: this opus, the Essay on the Modification of Clouds in
Speaker 2: eighteen oh three, and in it he was like, hey, clouds.
Speaker 2: Clouds are not just water vapor in this guy blown
Speaker 2: willy nilly by the winds, all right, come from the
Speaker 2: Earth's temperature and all kinds of factors. We need to
Speaker 2: come correct and have a naming system for them. Have
Speaker 2: a lot of respect for clouds. So he turned to
Speaker 2: Latin roots, and hence high clouds are serrus and that
Speaker 2: means curl or hair. And they're way up there, and
Speaker 2: they're pretty chilly. They're made of super cold water vapor
Speaker 2: or even ice crystals. And the middle clouds are alto,
Speaker 2: which means high, and low clouds are stratus, meaning layer.
Speaker 2: Now why is alto in the middle? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Why does Starbucks call a small a tall?
Speaker 3: Beats me, dudes?
Speaker 2: And actually, you know what I swear looking at this
Speaker 2: cloud naming is less complicated than a Starbucks order, and
Speaker 2: just like a lata, you can customize. So the Howard method,
Speaker 2: remember he's the granddaddy of clouds, has a bunch of
Speaker 2: sub sub categories, like cumulus, which means heapy whipped cream clouds.
Speaker 2: Stratus can mean low or sheet like either one whatever.
Speaker 2: Nimbo stratus, for example, is a low rain cloud. Before
Speaker 2: you know it, strato Cumulus stratiformist Translucidus ungulatis. It's as
Speaker 2: familiar and soothing as a triple ventige sugar free oat
Speaker 2: milk caramel macchiato. You're like, I get it. Also shout
Speaker 2: out to the Kelvin Helmholtz clouds, which look super oceanic
Speaker 2: like cartoons of the sea. They look exactly like the
Speaker 2: Billabong logo. I swear, but it's not sponsored by Billabong.
Speaker 2: Let's just debunk that right now. Now, what other myths
Speaker 2: are floating around out there?
Speaker 4: One thing that I get picky about is that the
Speaker 4: bottom of clouds is generally pretty flat.
Speaker 3: So if you look at sort of like a field of.
Speaker 4: Like cumulus clouds, like sort of the we call them
Speaker 4: fair weather cumulus, just sort of like the nice little
Speaker 4: puffy Simpson's clouds, they generally will have like a pretty
Speaker 4: flat base and they're all at like the same height.
Speaker 4: And so when people draw clouds and they're like all
Speaker 4: poofy at the bottom to do that, I'm just like, Oh,
Speaker 4: You're like, you don't get it.
Speaker 2: You don't get it. By the bye, after we stop recording,
Speaker 2: Rachel mentioned that she has a cloud tattoo. On her
Speaker 2: left shoulder blade, and she said the design was really
Speaker 2: important and she had to work with the artists to
Speaker 2: make sure that the cloud was flat on the bottom.
Speaker 2: As an ethologist, that was very critical. And also the
Speaker 2: morning we recorded this, her husband Eric had texted her
Speaker 2: a good luck chiff of a cloud, and in his text,
Speaker 2: she showed me that he apologized for its shape, which
Speaker 2: was puffy on the bottom. He's like, listen, I know
Speaker 2: this is an insult of clouds, but the sentiment is there. Also,
Speaker 2: as a graduate of that prominent meteorology program at Penn State,
Speaker 2: what else peeves her?
Speaker 4: You know, I get pretty arch when people to do
Speaker 4: the whole like, oh, you get paid to be wrong
Speaker 4: half the time. That sort of thing. That's one of
Speaker 4: those that like sticks in your craw because you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: you don't even know, we do so well. It's like
Speaker 4: confirmation biased that you remember the one time that they
Speaker 4: screw up right, but like you really like would do
Speaker 4: pretty well, Like you generally know whether you should bring
Speaker 4: an umbrella or not.
Speaker 3: You know, right, hard, it's really hard.
Speaker 2: That is really hard to see something so far down
Speaker 2: the horizon and to say, hey, we saved your butt
Speaker 2: on those rainy days. Yeah, I have so many Patroon questions.
Speaker 3: Are you ready?
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, okay, she is ready, but first before your
Speaker 2: Patreon questions. Each week we make a donation to a
Speaker 2: cause of theologists choosing, and this week, given the chat
Speaker 2: about pyrocumulus clouds and the wildfires in Australia, Rachel chose
Speaker 2: the World Wildlife Funds charity Australian Wildlife and Nature Recovery Fund,
Speaker 2: which supports veterinarians who are treating injured wildlife and provides
Speaker 2: food and water to critters in impacted regions. They use
Speaker 2: Koala detection dogs to help rescue them and to find
Speaker 2: other threatened species, and they get supplies to triage sites.
Speaker 2: So thank you Rachel for picking that. And that donation
Speaker 2: is made possible by sponsors of the show, which you
Speaker 2: may hear about.
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Speaker 2: Okay, back to your cloud questions. Catherine asks, why are
Speaker 2: they so fucking cool? Molly Rupp says word for word
Speaker 2: the question I was gonna ask, Well, so, yeah, at clouds,
Speaker 2: why are they so cool?
Speaker 4: I mean, they just are, right, I couldn't put a
Speaker 4: bare myself. Clouds are fucking cool. And that's like the
Speaker 4: great thing is, like, you know, like no matter what,
Speaker 4: I can just look outside and be.
Speaker 3: Like, that's just really cool.
Speaker 2: It's cool. It's like wallpaper for the sky, right, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean? And it's different every day and
Speaker 2: the time. Yeah, it's beautiful and sometimes it rains on us, Yeah,
Speaker 2: in a great way. Okay, wants to know why you're
Speaker 2: cloud's white?
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, I started got this a little bit earlier,
Speaker 4: like because you have a lot of droplets all in
Speaker 4: the same place and the light bounces off of them
Speaker 4: and gets scattered. I guess theyatur in all of the
Speaker 4: different directions, and so that that looks to our eyes
Speaker 4: like white.
Speaker 3: Basically.
Speaker 4: Hum.
Speaker 2: Kayla Simpson wants to know how do whole punch clouds form? Oh, so, okay,
Speaker 2: so this is interesting. Okay, So I have never seen
Speaker 2: a whole punch cloud or a fall streak, whole punch cloud,
Speaker 2: or a cloud canal, or a cavim or a sky punch,
Speaker 2: call them what you want. But I looked it up
Speaker 2: and it's like, there's just this big gaping bite taken
Speaker 2: from the middle of a cloud. And if you had
Speaker 2: had moonshine for dinner, I can certainly see why you
Speaker 2: would think this was an alien spaceship, as many people
Speaker 2: have done. So what causes them?
Speaker 4: Between zero degrees see and negative forty degrees see, all
Speaker 4: three phases of water can exist, right. You can have liquid,
Speaker 4: you can have vapor, and you can have solid. If
Speaker 4: there's like this diagram that shows like where the dew
Speaker 4: point of water is. And then also there's like an
Speaker 4: ice a similar one for ice right where at a
Speaker 4: certain temperature then ice would form. But in those in
Speaker 4: those in between regions, it's actually easier to form ice
Speaker 4: than it is to form liquid. So if you have
Speaker 4: both of both of them in the same place, then
Speaker 4: a lot of times the like liquid will evaporate and
Speaker 4: the air the water vapor will be more drawn towards
Speaker 4: the ice sort of. And so in a whole punch cloud,
Speaker 4: something happens that sort of disturbs the cloud. You get
Speaker 4: something that can that can form ice, like maybe a
Speaker 4: plane will go through and you'll get the right kind
Speaker 4: of particle that ice can form on, and so then
Speaker 4: a little bit of ice will form and it'll sort
Speaker 4: of like and a bunch of the water will sort
Speaker 4: of like go towards the ice, and then you won't
Speaker 4: be able to really see it because that part there's
Speaker 4: not much of it there and it's pretty thin, and
Speaker 4: so you get almost this little little hole in the cloud.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's nuts. But I'm gonna ask, how
Speaker 2: do you feel about the term cloud computing? Uh?
Speaker 4: You know, I don't have like strong opinions on it,
Speaker 4: but I do get a lot of followers on Twitter
Speaker 4: from various like cloud computing resources and whatever.
Speaker 2: I guess those people would be techefologists, do you think so?
Speaker 2: I don't know, Yeah, I think they'd be a tech
Speaker 2: an apologist. First time question asker Navarro wants to know
Speaker 2: in places like Brooklyn, big Up, it's overcast almost every
Speaker 2: day only in the winter, no visible sun, just a
Speaker 2: silvery white haze blanketing the entire sky. I actually got
Speaker 2: curious and googled it the other day. Turns out the
Speaker 2: explanation is nephological in nature. So can you please explain?
Speaker 2: And Jack Pourier and Courtney Ryan also have those questions
Speaker 2: about why is it cloud in the winter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, I mean I'm from Pennsylvania originally, and so
Speaker 4: I know the great skys of winter. It's a depressing
Speaker 4: time of year.
Speaker 2: So here's an all effective disorder.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So a lot of it is just the kind of
Speaker 4: clouds that tend to form. So you know, a lot
Speaker 4: of like the stratus I was, like I said, form
Speaker 4: when the atmosphere is stable, and so you get sort
Speaker 4: of like these blankety the stratus clouds. And in the
Speaker 4: winter generally the type of weather that happens tends to
Speaker 4: be that type of weather.
Speaker 3: And we don't get a lot of sun right that.
Speaker 4: You know, the Earth's tilt is like such that we're
Speaker 4: not getting a lot of sun that time here and
Speaker 4: so like the ground's not heating up a lot, and
Speaker 4: so you don't get a lot of like convective clouds
Speaker 4: or anything like that, and so a lot of the
Speaker 4: stuff is just stratisy, overcast sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm from San Francisco, and I just call that sunscreen.
Speaker 2: I myself a foggy day off soap weather JKJK. The
Speaker 2: Skin Cancer Foundation says that up to eighty percent of
Speaker 2: the sun's UV rays can pass right through clouds. So
Speaker 2: sunscreen just wants to be friends. It's here to help
Speaker 2: use it. So many people I'm going to say their
Speaker 2: names quickly, including Emily Maloney, Julie Bert, Dave in Sanity,
Speaker 2: Heather Densmore, Kitty Helberson, Chase Phoenix, Camille Young, Emmanuel Sanchez,
Speaker 2: and first time question askers Julia Tolbert, Belinda ku Oh
Speaker 2: and Libby mail Asked essentially asked in Libby's words, Wan,
Speaker 2: it's the deal with seating clouds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So in order to form a cloud droplet, you
Speaker 4: need something for it to condense onto. Okay, Like I said,
Speaker 4: we usually call these things aerosols. They're like little like
Speaker 4: solid or liquid particles that come from different reactions in
Speaker 4: the atmosphere or sometimes it's dust or whatever. Oh so
Speaker 4: cloud seating they do it in some places do it
Speaker 4: sort of for research. There's a couple places that do
Speaker 4: it sort of operationally. Trying to think, I think it's
Speaker 4: like somewhere in Canada they do it, and I know
Speaker 4: like I think in Israel they do it sometimes over
Speaker 4: the mountains. So basically, if you put a bunch of
Speaker 4: particles into the cloud, these like little aerosols or whatever.
Speaker 3: I don't remember what they use for it. Some sort
Speaker 3: of salt probably m M.
Speaker 6: I was going to say for breeze, but okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 6: they actually can use calcium chloride or dry ice, or
Speaker 6: silver iodide or propane or even tiny.
Speaker 2: Particles of sodium chloride table salt. Bust those into the
Speaker 2: sky to change the weather. Like we went through a
Speaker 2: spacetime portal into the future. But actually cloud seating and
Speaker 2: weather modification has been going on for like fifty years.
Speaker 4: At least, and you're sort of changing the makeup of
Speaker 4: that cloud. If there's not enough of those particles and
Speaker 4: you put some in the atmosphere, you're sort of triggering
Speaker 4: cloud formation. If you like want it to rain more
Speaker 4: there maybe or sometimes what happens is if you're sort
Speaker 4: of slowing down the rain process, then you can make
Speaker 4: it rain maybe further downstream right about your line.
Speaker 2: And Emmanuel Sanchez want to know what is that happening
Speaker 2: at the Beijing Olympics with their weather modification.
Speaker 4: That, as far as I understand, that's what happened, was
Speaker 4: that they did some sort of cloud seating to try
Speaker 4: and rain out some of the pollution.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know the details on it though.
Speaker 2: Who Okay, So I look this up and apparently China
Speaker 2: is all about cloud seating and they shoot rockets of
Speaker 2: silver iodide into the sky and then sometimes hot got
Speaker 2: it rains over another country and then everybody fights about
Speaker 2: whose rain it is? Like is it cedars keepers? I
Speaker 2: don't know. I'm not a cloud litigator. Is that ethical
Speaker 2: to cloud seed? As a cloud doctor, how do you
Speaker 2: feel about it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean it's not really harmful.
Speaker 4: You know, what you're putting in the atmosphere is just,
Speaker 4: like I said, some sort of salt or whatever, the
Speaker 4: kind of thing that's up there anyway. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: not something that can really be done to any sort
Speaker 4: of large scary scale or anything like that. It's not
Speaker 4: easy to do, and it's not easy to do well.
Speaker 4: The places where it is done is like really sort
Speaker 4: of small scale places where they understand that environment really well.
Speaker 2: Julia Tolbert, also first time question asker, wants to know
Speaker 2: do clouds have a smell?
Speaker 3: Do clouds have a smell? I've never noticed a smell.
Speaker 4: I mean rain has a smell, right, because you get
Speaker 4: that it's called petrocore mm hmm, the smell of rain,
Speaker 4: which is like really, I think it's like something in
Speaker 4: the dirt that gets stirredup when it gets wet or.
Speaker 3: Something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I hope clouds don't have a smell. It's mostly
Speaker 4: just water.
Speaker 3: Okay. A lot of.
Speaker 2: People, of course want to know about climate change. Emily Elaine,
Speaker 2: Nikaia Wooten, who's a first time question asker. Haley Everson
Speaker 2: first time question asker. Also Sarah Does and Jay, Julie
Speaker 2: Beert Schmannie Thompson, and janew They all want to know,
Speaker 2: in Haley's words, will climate change affect the clouds we see?
Speaker 2: And will certain types of clouds become less common or
Speaker 2: even go extinct.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, so it's a really complicated question that we
Speaker 4: don't really know the answer to but I mean the
Speaker 4: short answer is yes, it will change things as it
Speaker 4: gets warmer, sort of can like shift climate patterns around,
Speaker 4: and so you know, places that maybe weren't warm enough
Speaker 4: for there to be like a lot of conductive clouds
Speaker 4: might get more of those, or you can sort of
Speaker 4: shift where the main like storm track regions happen. And
Speaker 4: then there's also like over the oceans, there's like these
Speaker 4: large strato cumulus layers and there's a lot of open
Speaker 4: questions as to how those will change. You know, there
Speaker 4: wouldn't be a cloud that would go extinct. That would
Speaker 4: make me very sad, But it's just it's more about
Speaker 4: like small shifts and the important thing there is like
Speaker 4: how that affects like the radiation because there's all these
Speaker 4: feedbacks with warming, and how it affects the precipitation. Those
Speaker 4: are the sort of more important questions for you know
Speaker 4: what we actually want to understand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are we going to get drier as we get warmer?
Speaker 3: So it depends on where you are.
Speaker 4: There's one of the sort of things that gets thrown
Speaker 4: a lot is this like rich get Richer idea where
Speaker 4: the places that are moist will get moister, and the
Speaker 4: places that are dry will get drier, which is unfortunate. Right, Like,
Speaker 4: you know, if you live in a place it's like
Speaker 4: prone to flooding, you don't want more of that, And
Speaker 4: if you live in California, you don't want more drought.
Speaker 4: Like there's a lot of indications that that might be
Speaker 4: the way things are going.
Speaker 2: So we got to stock up on moisturizer in La Yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 4: Hoof.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know that this is probably a question you
Speaker 2: get a lot. It's a super stupid question, which is
Speaker 2: why I'm asking it. The difference between weather and climate. Yeah,
Speaker 2: do you have to explain that a lot?
Speaker 4: It's a first step a lot of the time because
Speaker 4: people a lot of times when people have doubts about
Speaker 4: climate change, a lot of it is like they have
Speaker 4: all these distrust of the models that we use, or
Speaker 4: people will just be like, oh, it's it's cold, where's
Speaker 4: that global warming? Right? Yeah, So there's like a lot
Speaker 4: of really cool analogies for it that I try to remember.
Speaker 4: But so, like one of the obvious ones is that
Speaker 4: the climate is the clothes that are in your closet,
Speaker 4: and the weather is the clothes that you wear.
Speaker 2: Ha ha, that's a that's a great way to get
Speaker 2: people to understand the difference, you know, and you kind
Speaker 2: of address this but like a round tree. First time
Speaker 2: question asker, Mike, first time question asker, and Bryce and
Speaker 2: also Evan want to know is it true, in Bryce's
Speaker 2: words that clouds often weigh millions of pounds?
Speaker 4: Yeah, millions sounds like a lot. I don't okay, I
Speaker 4: had to do the math, but like definitely thousands, like
Speaker 4: like the like ton has definitely been thrown around.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know those like random facts that you hear
Speaker 2: stuff like that. Gracie Zescha wants to know what is
Speaker 2: your favorite cloud information and why?
Speaker 4: Oh okay, So my favorite clouds are mammatus clouds, right, Okay,
Speaker 4: So mammatus clouds usually they can form in other ways,
Speaker 4: but usually they form on the underside of anvils. Right,
Speaker 4: So I said, the anvil is this big cloud that
Speaker 4: comes out from a thunderstorm, and Mattis clouds happen like
Speaker 4: almost sort of opposite the way that that tumuless clouds do,
Speaker 4: where you get sort of little pockets of air that
Speaker 4: comes down and so like it looks like really bumpy
Speaker 4: and it looks like this really cool formation.
Speaker 3: There's a trip down memory lane. Mattis the word, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean the sort of yeah, where the root.
Speaker 4: Of that comes from, right, Because you get those little
Speaker 4: like bulby bulbousy things and they're just really really cool
Speaker 4: looking and they're associated with storms, right, so you see
Speaker 4: them like after a storm passes, and especially like if
Speaker 4: it's evening time the light shines on them, they can
Speaker 4: look like really really cool. They're my shavorite, yeah, and
Speaker 4: they're boob clouds, their boop clouds.
Speaker 2: Nice. Aaron Ryan wants to know what would it actually
Speaker 2: feel like to fall through a cloud.
Speaker 4: I mean, it would just be like falling, but you'd
Speaker 4: be kind of moist.
Speaker 2: It'd be like a ouch. It would be like ouch.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Ganie wants to know why do cumulo nimbus clouds
Speaker 2: appear to us as such crazy colors like yellow and
Speaker 2: green and purple.
Speaker 4: So on, sort of what's in them and how the
Speaker 4: light is scattering? Like the darker that a cloud is
Speaker 4: usually the more stuff is in it, right, because it's
Speaker 4: blocking the light above it. Like if it's really dark overhead,
Speaker 4: there's sort of like more moisture in that cloud, right,
Speaker 4: Like if it rains the clouds overhead are usually like
Speaker 4: really dark gray. Sometimes cumulanimous cloud will tend to look greenish,
Speaker 4: and often that means that there's hail in it. What
Speaker 4: because of just the hails really big and it just
Speaker 4: scatters light in a different way. And so a lot
Speaker 4: of times like if there's hail in a cloud, or'll
Speaker 4: have this sort of greenish.
Speaker 3: Tinge to it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then if you get clouds like on the horizon,
Speaker 4: it all you get all sorts of different color effects
Speaker 4: because of the angle of the light and the way
Speaker 4: that it scatters and stuff.
Speaker 2: Catherine Finny wants to know. I once heard from a
Speaker 2: meteorologist friend that it's possible for clouds to have over
Speaker 2: one hundred percent humidity. Is that true? How can that
Speaker 2: be true?
Speaker 3: It is?
Speaker 4: Actually, Yeah, So it's kind of funny.
Speaker 2: So because if you have like a.
Speaker 4: Blob of air, like when we think about clouds, we'd
Speaker 4: sort of like hypothesize this this parcel of air, which
Speaker 4: is I don't know, if you think.
Speaker 3: About like a balloon without the balloon on it, sort
Speaker 3: of the.
Speaker 4: Blob of air and it has a certain amount of
Speaker 4: water in it, and it has a certain temperature. There's
Speaker 4: like this like sort of equilibrium that happens when you
Speaker 4: have like exactly the same amount of water, you know,
Speaker 4: at that dew point, temperature whatever.
Speaker 3: But like.
Speaker 2: Nothing happens instantaneously.
Speaker 4: And so you can get like a couple of percent
Speaker 4: over one relative humidity.
Speaker 2: WHOA, that's nuts. Okay, so that's not a lie. That's
Speaker 2: not fun flam. This, by the way, is called supersaturation,
Speaker 2: in case you ever meet a meteorologist and need to
Speaker 2: impress them in a pinch. Also, I may as well
Speaker 2: mention that sky writing involves smoking oil like paraffin to
Speaker 2: write words, and it's usually done around three thousand feet
Speaker 2: up and to leave a sky message for your sweetie.
Speaker 2: It'll sitch back around three grand. Now, the fancier dot
Speaker 2: matrix font skywriting is actually called sky typing, and that
Speaker 2: one lasts longer because it's about three times the altitude.
Speaker 2: But it's gonna cost you like fifteen gees. So at
Speaker 2: one point, the most commonly written letters in the sky.
Speaker 2: I wanted to look this up. I was like, they
Speaker 2: must be marriage proposals, right, No, they said, ls mft
Speaker 2: Woh what is a secret message? It just means lucky,
Speaker 2: strike means fine tobacco. Sky cancer somehow less sunny and
Speaker 2: romantic than I was expecting. Annatopson wants to know what's
Speaker 2: up with sunshowers the event when it's raining but it's
Speaker 2: sunny above you. What's up with that? Yeah?
Speaker 4: So, I mean again, things don't happen instantaneously, right, and
Speaker 4: so if you have like rain that forms from a cloud,
Speaker 4: it can be falling. The cloud itself might dissipate in
Speaker 4: the time that it takes for that rain to fall
Speaker 4: on you. Or you could have, you know, just a
Speaker 4: little cloud that's sort of like moving quickly and you
Speaker 4: get some rain that falls.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it could happen.
Speaker 2: Just be popping by Eliza Gaston wants to know how
Speaker 2: much truth is there in the saying red sales at
Speaker 2: night sailors, delight, red sales the morn sailors be warned.
Speaker 2: You ever heard that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've heard red skies at night sailors. Still, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's the there is actually some truth to it, and
Speaker 4: it has to do with the kind of clouds that
Speaker 4: you get. And it's like if you have like an
Speaker 4: approaching weather system versus something that's just passed where you'll
Speaker 4: see like sirrus clouds in the way that the light
Speaker 4: scatters off of them and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So this adage is attributed to everyone from Shakespeare to
Speaker 2: Jesus literally, and the logic behind it is, to quote
Speaker 2: the Library of Congress. When we see a red sky
Speaker 2: at night, this means that the setting sun is sending
Speaker 2: its light through a high concentration of dust particles, and
Speaker 2: this usually indicates a high pressure and stable air coming
Speaker 2: in from the west. Basically, good weather will follow, and
Speaker 2: a red sunrise can mean that good weather has passed.
Speaker 2: And if it's deep, fiery red, there may be a
Speaker 2: lot of water in the atmosphere. End quote. So red
Speaker 2: skies in the morning, gather your galoshes, which means, if
Speaker 2: you live in la you start canceling your plants. We
Speaker 2: don't do rain. And a bunch of people, including first
Speaker 2: time question asker Grace Baden, ask about acid rain, Like, yo,
Speaker 2: can we talk about acid rain? Grace says, what is
Speaker 2: up with that? And should we expect more occurrences of
Speaker 2: acid rain to continue as we continue to fuck up
Speaker 2: our atmosphere? Yeah?
Speaker 4: So, I mean, like I said, water carries with it,
Speaker 4: you know, the stuff that it was in it up
Speaker 4: in the sky. And so if there's yeah, a lot
Speaker 4: of carbon dioxide and the sky, or a lot of
Speaker 4: sulfate forms like sulfur orica. But yeah, whatever's in the
Speaker 4: atmosphere that can sort of form an acid, well, yet
Speaker 4: it'll raise the acidity of the rain as it falls. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's pretty pretty gross and harmful. And yeah, if we
Speaker 4: keep sticking stuff up in the atmosphere, that's the thing
Speaker 4: that happens.
Speaker 2: So acid rain was on American mines more in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties before the Clean Air Act of nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: but that didn't totally curb sulfur dioxide emissions in some countries.
Speaker 2: Environmental regulations haven't caught up since then. So acid rain,
Speaker 2: just like acid water genes, remains a global threat. Logan
Speaker 2: K wants to know. Is a SunDog a type of cloud?
Speaker 4: No, it's SunDog is okay, So there has to be
Speaker 4: a cloud for a SunDog to happen, Okay, But what
Speaker 4: happens is it's usually a cloud that you can't see.
Speaker 4: It's usually like a lot, like a really thin ice cloud.
Speaker 4: And then if the sun is at a particular angle,
Speaker 4: then the scattering of the sun off of that ice
Speaker 4: cloud will make that really cool bright spot.
Speaker 2: Oh I don't think I've ever seen a SunDog. Okay,
Speaker 2: so I Google image search them and sun dogs are
Speaker 2: like ice halos that make these glittery, shiny spots on
Speaker 2: the horizon kind of flanking the sun like a couple
Speaker 2: of Beyonce dancers. Now, Also, as long as I was
Speaker 2: looking up sundogs, I was like, what about cloud cats?
Speaker 2: Boy freakin' hownie. There are a lot of cat shaped
Speaker 2: clouds on the Internet. Some of them have questionable authenticity.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of heart shaped clouds too, and some
Speaker 2: real deal dinosaur shaped clouds and dong shaped form according
Speaker 2: to a whole roundup of them in the British newspaper
Speaker 2: The Sun Sky, Dino's sun dogs cat clouds. As long
Speaker 2: as we're talking cats and dogs. Side note, raining cats
Speaker 2: and dogs may have come from the Greek phrase catadoxa,
Speaker 2: which means beyond previous experience. Well trivia for you. Speaking
Speaker 2: of which, Lauren Kipperl wants to know how heavy does
Speaker 2: a cloud need to be before it rains?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's not necessarily about the heaviness of the cloud.
Speaker 4: It's sort of about the heaviness of the drops. Okay,
Speaker 4: there has to be enough water so that like rain
Speaker 4: can form. You know, a rain drop that has to
Speaker 4: be certain sort of a certain size before it's big enough,
Speaker 4: heavy enough to fall through there ballpark. Like a rain
Speaker 4: drop is like, I don't know, a millimeter or something
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 3: Okay ooh.
Speaker 2: Also, after we stopped recording, Rachel mentioned that the rain
Speaker 2: drop emoji is on our shit list too, because rain
Speaker 2: drops flatten out when they're falling and they make the
Speaker 2: shape of like a boob implant or like a whoopee
Speaker 2: cushion or I guess a lentil. So now we know
Speaker 2: that boob implants and whoopy cushions are lenticular. What a great, big,
Speaker 2: beautiful world we live in. John Moorster said, I've seen
Speaker 2: clouds that have tornadoes in them and they have a
Speaker 2: greenish tint. I live in Nebraska. Is that the hail?
Speaker 4: The hail?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: What the hail?
Speaker 2: Pandora two says that my son Shay, who's nine and
Speaker 2: is a first time asker, wants to know why are
Speaker 2: clouds never square?
Speaker 3: Oh that's neat. I like that kids ask the best questions.
Speaker 4: Because I would say probably because of like turbulence and
Speaker 4: arizonays moving around and stuff like that. Plus there's like
Speaker 4: all this sort of like chaotic stuff that happens on
Speaker 4: the small scale.
Speaker 3: And clouds where.
Speaker 4: You know, just because you have sort of similar conditions
Speaker 4: right here, they won't be exactly the same ten feet away,
Speaker 4: and so maybe you'll get a little bit more cloud
Speaker 4: here than you get there. And it's all kind of uneven.
Speaker 2: But they're flat on the bottom.
Speaker 3: They're pretty flat in the bottom.
Speaker 2: Megan Leonard first top question asker wants to know can
Speaker 2: clouds carry parasites or harmful pathogens like giardia?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Can clouds get beaver fever? Is also another thing that
Speaker 2: Megan would like to know. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know what that is. Okay, that sounds in appropriate.
Speaker 4: I have no idea if claud presumably like I mean, yeah,
Speaker 4: I know that they can have bacteria. Yeah, Like bacteria
Speaker 4: is something that can actually be like a cloud condensation
Speaker 4: nuclei if it's like the right shape or whatever.
Speaker 2: Really, so it could rain giardia down on you maybe maybe,
Speaker 2: I hope not. I just googled can it range giardia?
Speaker 2: And I found out that there can be algae and
Speaker 2: fungus and bacteria, all kinds of things in clouds, and
Speaker 2: between that and the chemtrail research, Google's probably pretty worried
Speaker 2: about me. Have you ever heard about those storms of
Speaker 2: like lizards and frogs that rain down, Yeah, that'll turn
Speaker 2: out cloud green. If you're like lizard brain Dad, you're
Speaker 2: on the drugs. I swear I am not. Please listen
Speaker 2: to the Thermophysiology episode if you have not, it's with
Speaker 2: the wonderful doctor Shane campbells Stayton for more on clouds
Speaker 2: of cold blooded critters. Ethan Better has a great question.
Speaker 2: Wants to know if different clouds had personalities, what would
Speaker 2: they be?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, wow, I mean you know, Stratus clouds
Speaker 4: would be sort of like gloomy, you know, like emo, yeah,
Speaker 4: or like I'm picturing like sadness on inside out, you know,
Speaker 4: sort of like l and then and then yeah. Cumulus
Speaker 4: clouds would be would be pretty happy, I think, right. Okay,
Speaker 4: just they're the pretty friendly, they're just chill.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Cumulative as clouds will.
Speaker 4: Probably be like you have like a short temper, okay,
Speaker 4: make the thunder.
Speaker 2: What would lenticular clouds be, like, you're weird? Aunt?
Speaker 3: Maybe?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like a pyro cumulus would be uh yeah,
Speaker 2: not someone I would want to.
Speaker 3: Mess withroably not.
Speaker 2: First timer Polytar wants to know why do clouds look
Speaker 2: like they're moving really fast?
Speaker 4: Sometimes they are moving really fast, sometimes really have Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean so like you tend to get like, you know,
Speaker 4: how there is a jet stream that jets like to
Speaker 4: fly in.
Speaker 3: I mean, the air up there.
Speaker 4: Can move like oh, trying to think like fifty knots
Speaker 4: or something like that, so it can just zooms through.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And if you look up and there's clouds at different layers,
Speaker 4: it's cool. You can you see that they're moving at
Speaker 4: different speeds.
Speaker 2: Ah, so you can just sort of track one and
Speaker 2: it's just floating right over you. Yeah, just like ah,
Speaker 2: we're bot. Melissa Crocey wants to know first time question asker,
Speaker 2: what do we know about clouds on other planets? If anything?
Speaker 2: Are there different types of clouds on those planets?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So, the the neat thing about clouds on other planets
Speaker 4: is that a lot of them aren't water clouds, which
Speaker 4: is like just sort of mind boggling to think about,
Speaker 4: because the temperatures are like so much colder, for instance,
Speaker 4: that you can get like methane clouds stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's pretty neat.
Speaker 2: Okay. I checked into this and NASA JPL researchers have
Speaker 2: calculated that in the methane stormy regions of Saturn it
Speaker 2: could rate up to two point two million pounds of
Speaker 2: diamonds annually. You have a crush on Saturn, now, don't you.
Speaker 2: If you like it, you can have to put a
Speaker 2: ring on it. Rings.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: You know what's funny about that is when I picture
Speaker 2: it raining diamonds, I picture it like cut gemstones and
Speaker 2: not just rocks.
Speaker 3: Like I picture that.
Speaker 4: There's an episode of Doctor Who I think where there's
Speaker 4: like something like that, some sort of diamond planet.
Speaker 2: Like they're already cut in polish, like the diamond mode.
Speaker 2: I picture the same thing, and you're like, ow out.
Speaker 2: What do you think is the crappiest thing about clouds?
Speaker 2: What do you hate or what do you hate about
Speaker 2: studying them? Or what is your least favorite cloud? What
Speaker 2: about clouds is on your shit list?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 4: I don't know. I just love clouds. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: being a scientist is frustrating sometimes. I mean there's you know,
Speaker 4: there are days when all you're doing is like googling
Speaker 4: error messages for some code or you know, like when
Speaker 4: you have to write papers or proposals or whatever, and
Speaker 4: you're like spending all this time writing, which is like
Speaker 4: one of those things that I never really enjoyed doing
Speaker 4: and nobody really told me was such a huge part
Speaker 4: of the job until I was like it was like
Speaker 4: too late to change my mind.
Speaker 2: So people picture you just on a grassy hill staring
Speaker 2: up at the sky with maybe like a casual notepad
Speaker 2: next to you, but really you're like.
Speaker 4: You're at a computer. Yeah, I'm at a computer constantly. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean what, I use computer models to do my
Speaker 4: work and yeah, so I you know, make fake clouds
Speaker 4: in the computer. They're less pretty than the real ones.
Speaker 2: What do you love the most about clouds or your
Speaker 2: work or about being a nephologist, which you know know
Speaker 2: you are.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I just love that, like on a
Speaker 4: day when my work is making me grumpy, that I
Speaker 4: can just go outside and look at the sky and
Speaker 4: be like, oh, right, that's the thing that I'm studying,
Speaker 4: like this cool thing, And you know, I get to
Speaker 4: work with other people who get excited about it too.
Speaker 3: Like the few days of the year that we do
Speaker 3: get a storm come through.
Speaker 4: There's like a couple of us that are like really
Speaker 4: like the weather we needs in the group that'll be
Speaker 4: like outside, like huddled on the side, like, oh.
Speaker 3: My gosh, there's actual weather, I know.
Speaker 2: And the greatest thing about la is that when it
Speaker 2: does rain here, it's like a holiday, Like, yeah, people
Speaker 2: don't go to work. Yeah, everyone cancels their planned it's
Speaker 2: just like, well it's raining, and it's like, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I know, we'll I'll be staying home, which is so thrilling.
Speaker 2: Any advice to anyone who wants to become an apologist.
Speaker 4: So, one of the biggest things in meteorology that I
Speaker 4: think maybe people don't know is how much math it is.
Speaker 3: Okay, so if you want.
Speaker 4: To study meteorology, you should probably bone up on your
Speaker 4: math skills a lot of like mathe and physics and
Speaker 4: stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Cool. Well, I would say that you were a ray
Speaker 2: of sunshine, but you're really uh, I feel like that's
Speaker 2: an insult in your work. So you're just a very
Speaker 2: You're a very dense and deep, dark, stormy cloud. And
Speaker 2: I mean that as a compliment. Okay, that's the best
Speaker 2: kind of cloud, right them. So as always meet smart
Speaker 2: people and then invite them into your home if you
Speaker 2: feel like it, to ask them stupid questions, and to
Speaker 2: follow doctor stores. She's on Twitter at clouds in my Beer.
Speaker 2: We're at Ologies on Twitter, Come be friends with us
Speaker 2: on that and on Instagram We're at Ologies. You can
Speaker 2: tag your merch photos Ologies Merch and we repost you
Speaker 2: on Mondays. And thanks to Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch
Speaker 2: for handling that. They host the comedy podcast You Are
Speaker 2: That and you should take a listen. Thank you to
Speaker 2: Aaron Talbert for admitting the Ologies Facebook group. Thank you
Speaker 2: to Emily White and all of the Ologies transcribers out
Speaker 2: there for making episodes accessible for free. Those and bleeped
Speaker 2: episodes for kids are up at alleyboard dot com slash
Speaker 2: Ologies Extra. There's a link in the show notes, and
Speaker 2: if you ever need a pro transcriptionist, email hire Emily
Speaker 2: White at gmail dot com. She is wonderful. Thank you
Speaker 2: Jarrett Sleeper for the assistant editing and some research out
Speaker 2: this week, and as always, the Happy Cumulus and the
Speaker 2: shape of Mustache. Stephen Ray Morris, who hosts the Kitty
Speaker 2: Theme per Cast and the Dino Themed SDRA write podcasts
Speaker 2: for Lead Editing could not do it without you. Nick
Speaker 2: Thorburn wrote and performed the theme song. Now, if you
Speaker 2: listen to the end of the episode, you know I
Speaker 2: tell you a secret and this week.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So, once I had this big meeting, I was really
Speaker 2: nervous about it, and for fun at a time, I
Speaker 2: was talking to a good friend who's like, let me
Speaker 2: draw you a tarot card from the deck sitting next
Speaker 2: to me, I'll see what advice I should give you,
Speaker 2: kind of like and let's see what your fortune cookie says.
Speaker 2: And the card was a sword, and I don't know
Speaker 2: dick about taro, but she was like, oh, that kind
Speaker 2: of means like action and courage and power. And I
Speaker 2: was like, that's tight. Those are good meeting vibes. So
Speaker 2: before the meeting, to remember to feel like strong and courageous,
Speaker 2: I straight up took a sharpie and I drew a
Speaker 2: sword on my stomach. And it was fun going into
Speaker 2: a meeting knowing that I had a giant, sloppy, asymmetrical,
Speaker 2: poorly drawn sword on my belly under my shirt and
Speaker 2: nobody else knew. But now you know, so go ahead
Speaker 2: write crazy shit on your body before a meeting, but
Speaker 2: don't do it before a date because if it goes well,
Speaker 2: that could be really weird. Nless you're seeing an X
Speaker 2: and you don't want to get back together, And then
Speaker 2: maybe you could write, hey, if you can read this,
Speaker 2: this was a mistake, which would probably kill the mood
Speaker 2: pretty quickly.
Speaker 4: So hot tip there.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's your body, graffiti it up for the day. Also,
Speaker 2: sometimes it's fun to write happy birthday on your butt
Speaker 2: and then hang out with a friend all day and
Speaker 2: then moon them and they're like, surprise. Just make sure
Speaker 2: that the ink is non toxic. I'm just your old
Speaker 2: dad looking out for you.
Speaker 5: Okay, bye bye, pacodermatologybiology, rypto, zoology, lithology, Yeah, erreology, meteorology, mattology, apology, seriology, silology.
Speaker 1: Right up in here, we'll make a happy little cloud.
Speaker 1: Here's just the corner of the brush.
Speaker 6: You can just put as many layers of clouds in
Speaker 6: your world as you want.
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