Rain Contributes to Cycling Patterns of Clouds

Like shifting sand dunes, some clouds disappear in one place and reappear in another. New work this week in Nature shows why: Air movement due to rain forms patterns in low clouds that remain cohesive structures even while appearing to shift about the sky, due to a principle called self-organization. These clouds cover much of the open ocean. Understanding how their patterns evolve will eventually help scientists build better models for predicting climate change. This is the first time researchers have shown the patterns cycle regularly and why.

Read the whole article on Newswise - Scinews

More from Newswise - Scinews