Talk:Cloud physics

Major Article Expansion

Hey all -

I tried to put together some information for this article. There are all kinds of ways this can be expanded, so feel free to help me out. Maybe someone could talk about:

Detection equipment (plane-mounted and satellite) Snow formation Extreme weather phenomena Better treatemnt of classification section from a physics view

And if anyone can add any real physics/math to this, it would really help the article along.

If you have any thoughts, put them down and maybe we can get this up to an A+ article! AndyHuston 00:42, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

@AndyHuston Ive restructured the detection to give an initial nod to other forms. Much much more could be done but i thought id get a placeholder in there.

can you be more specific about what physics/maths you would like to see? DecFinney (talk) 15:57, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

I've added a little, and removed the parts about "air holding water" or "air being saturated". The presence or absence of air or other gases does not affect the saturation vapor pressure, relative humidity or anything else about waters evaporation and condensation. I'll add more as time allows. Also, I checked the link given regarding supersatuation of 120% being common, which is not what I've read elsewhere, but didn't find any mention of 120% supersaturation there so I deleted that as well. Matthew.homola 09:53, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I would like to extend this to the question of why clouds have a boundary where filaments and structures are apparent. I was watching clouds just now and notice tiny isthmus protrusions; all Internet references I find are like this one, only speaking of the large-scale. The article here mentions it cannot be molecular attraction for obvious reasons, but surely something keeps that small island in its shape. Cigarette smoke can also float in blobs and layers, but shows no fractal-shapes at the boundary, same with theatrical fog, so something happens at the very large scale? My perspective difference due to distance? I'd hope somewhere has an answer, or maybe not as advertising would seek to exploit the principle! Teledyn (talk) 21:32, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

@Teledyn Im not sure its true that cigarette smoke does have a fractal nature. But anyway... some key differences, that may be relevant, are: 1) there are multiple source of energy input to cloud dynamics, not just the heating at the surface. Latent heating and cooling through phase changes are fundamental in creating circulations in clouds; 2) smoke is concentrated aerosol particles that are diffusing from the source into the air. Cloud is water that is ubiquitous in the air moving between different phases, and as such an eddy can move air in and out of saturated regions, mean the cloud water evaporates and then reforms within the circulation.

i know this doesnt precisely answer your question but i hope it gives you some clues.

it is not obvious to me exactly what should be added to the article. I think yous need to find a source discussing what you are interested in for anything to be justified. DecFinney (talk) 16:05, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

@Matthew.homola I think it might mainly be supersaturation wrt ice in cirrus cloud that reach those numbers but id have to do some reading to be sure. DecFinney (talk) 16:07, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Supercell

A link to that article would be nice here. Either from cumulonimbus or as "Also see".76.97.245.5 (talk) 07:14, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Dynamic phase hypothesis

This is all a bit dubious. Many large-scale clouds have essentially no updrafts William M. Connolley (talk) 22:17, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Supercooling is not because of surface tension

In the cloud literature I checked, surface tension is not even mentioned in relation to supercooling. Supercooling is due to lack of freezing nuclei and can be obtained even for bulk water e.g. in a large, very clean tank. In clouds, droplets are usually just clean enough not to freeze at 0°C, independent of surface tension (however, large size increases the probability of a freezing nucleus present in the droplet). --129.13.156.135 (talk) 09:59, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

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Collaborative expert review by the UK NERC CLOUDSENSE programme

This review was produced collaboratively by researchers on the UK Natural Environment Research Council programme, CLOUDSENSE. I facilitated the review as part of my role as postdoctoral research fellow on one of the research projects within the CLOUDSENSE consortium. A full copy of the review and description of the process can be read at https://doi.org/10.48785/100%2F367. Below outlines some key targeted additions of content to the page, along with comments of a more general nature. Before the end of the year I plan to hold a workshop where we will make the targeted edits. If any of the targeted edits require discussion separate Talk topics will be posted. We do not have immediate plans to act upon the general comments below so welcome the wider Wikipedia community to consider them when looking to further improve the page.

Proposed additions:

1. Introduction, 1-2 new sentences on the following: Ice nucleating particles, primary ice production and growth; Secondary ice production
2. Cloud formation, add 1-2 new paragraphs on each of the following: Primary ice production (Heterogeneous nucleation with INPs, Homogeneous freezing); Secondary ice production (SIP) (SIP definition, introduction to key mechanisms and radiative impacts of ice multiplication, Rime splintering (Hallett-Mossop process), Frozen droplet fragmentation, Ice-ice collisional breakup)
3. Determination of properties, a new paragraph of each of the following: In-situ aircraft observations; Surface-based remote sensing

General comments:

The existing short paragraph in the ‘Models’ section exclusively discusses the representation of cloud hydrometeor particle size distributions in models. The section could be expanded to discuss: Different types of models and their treatment of clouds, parameterisations of cloud physical processes, treatment of aerosol-cloud interactions in models. Example material:

• Different types of models (e.g. GCM, LAM, large-eddy, RCM etc.) and both their treatment of clouds on the macro- and microscale.
• Parameterisations of cloud physical processes, with useful textbook references (e.g. Khain and Pinksy, Physical Processes in Clouds and Cloud Modelling, 2018).
• Treatment of aerosol-cloud interactions in models, with focus on CCNs and INPs.

DecFinney (talk) 09:41, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

the targeted edits and restructure from the review are now complete. DecFinney (talk) 16:08, 8 April 2026 (UTC)