Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: Adam on 25/01/2010 17:30:02
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Adam asked the Naked Scientists:
Howdy Chris, Love your show! (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/)
Thanks for answering those burning questions from people around the world!
My question is to find what determines the band spacing in altocumulus undulatus clouds. They are also called 'billow clouds' or 'mackerel sky.' One site explains them as formed by resonance in cloud layers:
http://resonanceswavesandfields.blogspot.com/2008/03/water-waves.html
I'd also like to know curious if resonance also forms the bands that appear in tea-foam and water-immersed sand. For a fun experiment, gently rocking a freshly prepared cup of tea will form evenly spaced parallel bands on the surface of the cup. Likewise, sifting a tub of water with a fine layer of sand will also produce bands.
Can you tell me whether the weather and tea bands are related, or do I need to take my head out of the clouds?
Adam in Alexandria VA
What do you think?
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That was a really nice link Adam. I've saved it :)
As for billow clouds they seem to come to be through a process called the 'Kelvin-Helmholtz instability' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin%E2%80%93Helmholtz_instability)
And here is the *help* math (http://hmf.enseeiht.fr/travaux/CD0001/travaux/optmfn/hi/01pa/hyb72/kh/kh_theo.htm) behind it :)
As for the tea and the tub?
I don't think so?
But, if not, make it another post and we will see, there seems to be some really good guys here, on about everything I guess :)
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As this was about clouds, and as I found a really nice site :)
Rare clouds on Planet Earth. (http://www.collthings.co.uk/2008/06/10-very-rare-clouds.html) There are some awesome pictures there..