Questions about Clouds

2. How do clouds form?

The recipe for making a cloud is:

  1. Ingredients Needed

    1. water vapor (This is regular H2O in the form of an invisible, odorless gas, which is what liquid water becomes when it evaporates. There's always at least some in the air.)

    2. aerosols (These are tiny, solid particles of dust, smoke, ash, salt, pollen, etc. suspended in the air—there's usually lots of these around, even when we can't see them)

  2. Instructions

    1. Cool the air until some of the water vapor begins to condense onto some of the aerosols, forming lots of tiny droplets of liquid water.

      (If it gets cold enough in the cloud, the droplets can freeze into tiny ice crystals.)

An altocumulus cloud (photo by Jay Shafer)


To Question #3 about Clouds