What is a Cloud?

Question

And how does it form?

Answer 1

A cloud is a visible aggregate of tiny water droplets and/or ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere and can exist in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some clouds are accompanied by precipitation; rain, snow, hail, sleet, even freezing rain.

There are 3 conditions that are necessary for cloud formation: lifting (evaporation), cooling and condensation.

We can prove that dry air absorbs water by evaporation. [link proof] Therefore it makes sense to say that the air around us contains water vapour (water vapour is a gas). When this air rises it gets cooler and the water vapour condenses (it turns into tiny drops of water) to form clouds. Did you realise that condensation is the reverse of evaporation? But what makes the air rise?

Convection. Think about the saying that 'hot air rises'. When the sun's rays heat the earth this also heats the air just above the ground and this hot air rises.

Sometimes cold, heavy air pushes its way under warm air and forces it to rise.

Another reason why air rises is when it has to pass over hills and mountains (this is why mountains often have clouds on top of them).

Answer 2

A cloud is an aggregate of very small water droplets,ice crystals, or a mixture of both with its base above the earth's surface.The simplest formation of cloud is as follows.
Clouds form when upward flowing air, which cools from expansion, can no longer contain all of the water vapour it holds.Some of the vapour condenses into cloud droplets( or ice crystals if the air is cold enough) forming a cloud.

Answer 3

A cloud is a large mass of particles of condensed vapor, as water or sometimes ice is suspended from the earth's atmosphere.

Answer 4

despite years of research and the emergence of increasingly sophisticated tools, scientists are still at odds over one of the most basic issues of all: how to define a cloud.

"The problem is that what we define a cloud as depends on the type of instrument we're using to define it," says atmospheric scientist Steven Ackerman, the director of the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Answer 5

Lol... Evaporated water. Its formed in the water cycle..

Water is heated until it becomes a vapor and rises

Answer 6

its water vapor they sort of just collected together i'm sure their is a technical term. liquefaction or something