Clouds are puffs of condensed water droplets in the sky that vary in shape, size, and color depending on the environmental conditions, warmth, and size of the water droplets. Based on the National Weather Service, there are four main varieties of clouds: cirro-form, cumulo-form, nimbo-form, and strato-form.
A stunning image of clouds resembling a storming sea has become popular on Reddit. The photo, taken by Minnesota resident Theresa Birgin Lucas, was published on Reddit by the account u/Harvickfan4Life in a blog that has received over 88,000 upvotes. It depicts a gray, foggy haze towering over a highway, giving the impression that the entire ocean is hanging only a few hundred feet over the earth.
Cirro-form formations are high but also wispy, cumulo-form clouds are detached clouds that resemble white fluffy fluff balls, strato-form clouds are vast blanket-like skies, while nimbo-form clouds are a wet cloud group that combines features of the other three varieties. Experts are split on what sort of cloud caused the sky to appear as it appears in the snap, with some doubting its legitimacy.
Explaining the 'Phenomena' Real Cloud or Fraud?
According to Katja Friedrich, an oceanic and atmospheric sciences faculty member at the University of Colorado, the image appears to be a forgery. The professor gives two points about the photo. First, there seems to be a beam of light on the bottom left and higher right-referring if the earth suddenly having two suns. Secondly, the bottom clouds appear to be going through from the left, while the higher cloud is flowing in from the right. She is also unclear why a cloud is angled towards the photo-it nearly appears like a wall cloud. However, she questions why the upper section is so far in the context.
Others, however, have stated that the odd oceanic cloud is an uncommon type of cloud that was first included in the International Cloud Atlas as an additional feature in March 2017. In contrast, Tero Mielonen, an atmospheric scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, explained that the image looks real, and the cloud structure is known as asperitas, as they explained in a separate interview by Newsweek.
Wave-like Cloud Asperitas
As defined by the International Cloud Atlas, asperitas are well-defined, wave-like formations on the bottom of a cloud, including localized disturbances in the cloud base, as if observing a rough surface sea surface from below.
Cloud experts at Imperial College London, Ed Gryspeerdt & Paulo Ceppi, told Newsweek that they believed the image captured an asperitas cloud.
They suppose that even though the lighting circumstances were exactly ideal and the shot was trimmed just so, folks could obtain similar results. We couldn't envision the 3d image in their brains. Therefore, we're not sure they can pass judgment on it. Asperitas clouds frequently have this odd type of illumination. Therefore, that would be an ideal option, they stated in a joint statement.
They have shot many images of clouds, and they can tell you that getting that dark blue is challenging. Not difficult; however, clouds are frequently overexposed if there is also terrain in the photograph; thus, they are very white unless you attempt to boost the contrast. Perhaps HDR on even a phone might accomplish this.
RELATED ARTICLE: Rare Rainbow Scarf Cloud Stuns Residents in China: How Did It Form?
Check out more news and information on Environment & Climate in Science Times.
