Speaker: Linda Karwisch
The talk will introduce the science, history, and culture of Clouds The author of "The CloudSpotter's Book" is Gavin Pretor-Pinney and Founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society. Started his fascination with Clouds in 2004. Clouds will be covered in a varieties of views points. As well as stories never encountered before behind the weather reports.
Linda Karwisch is an artist, writer, and poet. 3 year member of Scientech and 15 year member of International Women of Indiana. 25 years of Occupational Therapy retired, Self taught of many crafts and skills.
Program: The Cloud Spotting An Exploration of Our Daily Skies!
Speaker: Linda Karwisch, Scientech Club member
Introduced By: Sally Endo
Attendance: NESC: 89, Zoom: 22
Guest(s): Larry Staub, Penny Cunningham, Sandy Gosling
Scribe: Terry Ihnat
Editor: Ed Nitka
Talk’s Zoom recording found at: https://www.scientechclubvideos.org/zoom/03092026.mp4
Today’s talk was on clouds by longtime observer Linda Karwisch, a locally published writer, poet, and multimedia artist. She shared her insights into clouds and their cultural significance.
A good reference is the “Cloud Spotters Guide”. There is a Cloud Appreciation Society that highlights the beauty and variety of clouds (https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/). Also “Collecting Clouds”, to document type, date, and location of sightings.
Clouds, in their variety of shapes, affect movies, pop culture, and art. Clouds are made of water droplets, 350 billion her per cubic foot, and the diffusion of light gives their distinctive appearance.
In the Asian Indian culture, cumulus clouds are related to the elephant. The medium cumulus cloud, weighing 220 tons, is about 80 elephants.
In 1802 Luke Howard made a taxonomy, naming cloud types, i.e., stratus, cirrus, cumulus, nimbus. Then in 1856, The International Cloud Atlas was developed to establish cloud class standards.
Cloud types by altitude: low, the cumulus and stratus up to 6,500 feet; mid-level, 6,500-23,000 feet, altostratus and altocumulus; high level, 16,500-45,000 feet, cirrus and cirrostratus. Special note of the cumulonimbus: for its size and storm potential, it contains the energy of 10 Hiroshima bombs and can be taller than Mount Everest.
Notable cloud types: cumulus which are puffy and cotton like, low clouds signifying fair weather. Cirrus are high altitude fibrous appearing, ice crystal clouds. Stratus clouds are low level even forming fog at the ground level when the temperature lowers to the dew point. Lenticular clouds form over mountains; they are lens shaped and can be mistaken for UFOs. Contrails are manmade from water vapor by heat exiting from plane exhaust in cold moist air.
A dramatic story was given of LTC Rankin who ejected and descended through a cumulonimbus cloud and lived to tell about it.
Clouds were important in military history. Stagg was the forecaster in charge of weather during D-Day. They had a 6-hour window in which to attack on 6 June 1944. The next window was a week later, and the delay would have been catastrophic. Cloud seeding was used in Southeast Asia from 1967 to 1972, called Operation Popeye, to prolong the monsoons. It worked increasing the rain up to 30% making more rain and mud and floods to slow down the enemy. There were 2000 missions over Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. In 1977 the U.N. put an end to environmental modification.
Historically, clouds affected Constantine and his battles. He saw clouds in the shape of the cross or a Pax, the religious symbol of the P with an X over it. In a dream, Jesus told him that was a sign of victory.
Clouds were used in renaissance art portraying Jesus with clouds. Some clouds produce fishlike scale patterns. High altitude cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds resemble fish scales. A carp cloud would predict a drizzle giving time to prepare. A mackerel cloud portends strong storms immediately. When the sun rays shine through the clouds that can produce what they call a Jacob’s ladder.
A special cloud type is a morning glory cloud, 1000 kilometers by 2 km, and it moves at 60-200 miles an hour. Daredevils take planes cloud surfing to ride the waves of roll clouds with the developing leading edge in the disappearing trailing edge.
Clouds are reflected in poetry, song and quotes. Most of this audience will remember the song “Clouds” written and sung by Joni Mitchell and also sung by Judy Collins.
Linda Karwisch
