Clouds: How to Identify Nature’s Most Fleeting Forms

The mystery of clouds has captivated scientists and artists alike. This unique book shows you how to use the meteorological techniques of nephology—the study of clouds and cloud formation—to identify these elusive and transmutable shapes. It curates, classifies, and measures every species—including those recently discovered—considering the height, size, texture, arrangement, modifications, and movement of their many shifting forms. Clouds blends a lively and engaging narrative by one of today’s leading meteorologists with essays on the physics and art of clouds and includes a wealth of breathtaking cloud studies by some of the greatest artists ever to look skyward.

• Presents a “taxonomic” approach to identification, applying the basic laws of geometry to quantify and measure clouds and cloud formations
• Showcases artists who painted clouds from a scientific viewpoint, such as John Constable, Eugène Boudin, J.M.W. Turner, and Caspar David Friedrich
• Tells the stories of the physicists and painters who have attempted to record the many different incarnations of clouds
• Explains the physics of clouds, from the basic constituents of Earth’s atmosphere to cloud formation and dissipation, the colors and shades of clouds, the development of precipitation, and the timescale evolution of clouds
• Discusses the classification and naming of clouds from historical times to today
• Serves as user-friendly reference guide to low, midlevel, and high cloud species
• Includes charts, infographics, and a glossary of terms