Perhaps at some point you have asked yourself how much does a cloud weigh. As we know, there are different types of clouds depending on their characteristics and formation conditions. Therefore, we cannot say exactly how much a cloud weighs, but we must first characterize the type of cloud we are dealing with.
In this article we are going to tell you how much a cloud weighs according to the type of information it has.
Cloud formation
Clouds are formed by the condensation of air vapor in the atmosphere. Despite its simple, smooth, and often elegant appearance, and various shapes suspended in the air, the cloud formation process is a very complex and largely unknown physicochemical mechanism. The truth is that almost all existing clouds, except for a layer of fog on the ground, still float in the air because their weight can be supported by rising air currents at their bases or by horizontal displacement winds.
The quality of a cloud depends on its sex (more or less vertical development and general size) and internal structure (rain, freezing rain, snow, hail). The mass of a cloud can be roughly measured in terms of density. So, for example, the calculated mean density of medium cumulus clouds is half a gram per cubic meter. That is, each cubic meter of cloud can contain, on average, half a gram of water. The dimensions of such clusters they are usually 1000 meters long, 1000 meters wide and 1000 meters high. Therefore, it approximates the volume of a cube of one billion cubic meters.
how much does a cloud weigh
If we analyze that clouds are made up of millions of water droplets or ice crystals, our perception can begin to change. To answer this question as precisely as possible, a team of NOAA scientists used the ideal gas law to find the approximate weight of small clusters, the so-called clear sky cloudswho appear in this story.
Well, this little cloud with only 1 km x 1 km of surface and 1 km of height (that is, 1 km3 of volume) weighs 550.000 kg. It is still the same: 500 tons. To put it another way, find a real and natural example, equivalent to the weight of 100 African elephants.
Water in the atmosphere
Clouds are the most obvious manifestation, there is water in the atmosphere, a lot of water. As you know, even in clear skies, there is a lot of water above us, although the particles that form are so small that we cannot see them.
Estimates of the amount of water in the atmosphere at any one time indicate about 12.900 square kilometers. While it may be a lot, this amount is only 0,001% of the total water on Earth.
But how much does a cloud weigh? Using the ideal gas law, the density of dry air at a height of 2 km is 1,007 kg/m3, while the density of moist air is 1,007 kg/m3, which is 0,5 g/m3 as a base that we detail in the document. That is, a small fair weather cloud of 1 square kilometer has 500 million grams of water droplets, or 500.000 kilograms.
And be careful because some clouds have less and less water, but we chose one of the smallest clouds that we could see in the sky. There is no doubt that the weight of the sky covered by the typical nimbostratus or the powerful cumulonimbus cloud it can be similar to the weight of many 100 African elephants.
Why do clouds float?
at sea level, the air pressure is about 1 Kg/cm2. Since air has weight, it must also have density. If clouds are made of water particles, why do they float in the air? The point is that the same volume of air occupied by clouds has a higher density than that occupied by dry air. That is, the density of the clouds is less than the density of the clear sky in the same space, so the clouds float.
But beyond that, there are updrafts and downdrafts that keep these water droplets or ice crystals from falling until they are heavy enough for precipitation to occur.
elephant experiment
Peggy Lemone, a senior researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, has always wanted to answer a question she asked herself over and over again as a child: How much does a cloud weigh?
To find out, Lemone went to work, first selecting a cloud and calculating its density. She chose an ordinary cloud, «the kind of fluffy white cloud we see on a sunny day, with some cloud cover.» As a general rule, scientists assume that such a cloud contains half a gram of water per cubic meter.
Then measure the size of the cloud. To do this, Lemone uses an odometer to measure cloud shadows when the sun is directly overhead. This cloud is usually cube-shaped, so if its shadow is a kilometer long, it is also a kilometer high. This gives us a million cubic meters of clouds.
With the density and volume data in hand, we can calculate how much water is in that cloud: 500 million grams of water, or about 500 tons. "It's hard for people to mentally represent these quantities, so we tend to use more figurative measurements, like elephants," explains Lemone. "So if an adult elephant weighs an average of 6 tons, we can say that the cloud in question weighs 83 elephants."
The heaviest clouds are the black storm clouds because, obviously, they are the ones that carry the most water. So, according to Lemone, these clouds can weigh as much as "200,000 elephants".
How could it be floating in the air? so easy. "It's not like 200.000 elephants can float in the air. That is not physically possible. What happens is that, in the case of clouds, the weight is distributed over a large number of small water droplets and ice crystals over a very large surface.” The largest droplets are never elephant-sized, no more than 0,2mm wide, and small enough to float in the environment. »
I hope that with this information you can learn more about how much a cloud weighs.