Episode 1842
Cirrus cloud
Sat, 2022-May-21 00:24 UTC
Length - 3:10
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Saturday, 21 May 2022 is Cirrus cloud.
Cirrus (cloud classification symbol: Ci) is a genus of high cloud made of ice crystals. Cirrus clouds typically appear delicate and wispy with white strands. Cirrus are usually formed as warm, dry air rises, causing water vapor deposition onto rocky or metallic dust particles at high altitudes. Globally, they form anywhere between 4,000 and 20,000 meters (13,000 and 66,000 feet) above sea level, with the higher elevations usually in the tropics and the lower elevations in more polar regions.
Cirrus clouds can form from the tops of thunderstorms and tropical cyclones and sometimes predict the arrival of rain or storms. Although they are a sign that rain and maybe storms are on the way, cirrus themselves drop no more than falling streaks of ice crystals. These crystals dissipate as they fall through warmer and drier air and never reach ground. Cirrus clouds warm the earth, potentially contributing to climate change. A warming earth will likely produce more cirrus clouds, potentially resulting in a self-reinforcing loop.
Optical phenomena, such as sun dogs and halos, can be produced by light interacting with ice crystals in cirrus clouds. There are two other high-level cirrus-like clouds called cirrostratus and cirrocumulus. Cirrostratus looks like a sheet of cloud, whereas cirrocumulus looks like a pattern of small cloud tufts. Unlike cirrus and cirrostratus, cirrocumulus clouds contain droplets of supercooled (below freezing point) water.
Cirrus clouds form in the atmospheres of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; and on Titan, one of Saturn's larger moons. Some of these extraterrestrial cirrus clouds are made of ammonia or methane ice, much like water ice in cirrus on Earth. Some interstellar clouds, made of grains of dust smaller than a thousandth of a millimeter, are also called cirrus.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:24 UTC on Saturday, 21 May 2022.
For the full current version of the article, see Cirrus cloud on Wikipedia.
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