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Sky Watchers Want Recognized a Newly Described Type of Cloud
phantomfive writes "In Iowa and Scotland there are reports of a type of cloud not yet recognized by the World Meteorological Foundation. It seems the cloud does not match any of the clouds in the International Cloud Atlas, and thus there is a campaign underway to have it included. Some have said the clouds look like Armageddon has arrived."
... for all those who suspect 'Photoshop':
The Cloud Appreciation Society
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
They are not undocumented, they do indeed have a name and are called "mammatus clouds". They just aren't very common. There are thousands of photos of mammatus on the internet.
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Indeed. Mammatus aren't too common, but they're really creepy when you do see them in person; it's a whole, "clouds aren't supposed to look like that!" feeling. There's some great photos here. And yes, they actually do look that unreal.
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There most likely is no problem. I actually AM a meteorologist (BS, MS, and finishing up my PhD) and these just look like some cumulus lenticularis- the formation mechanism is due to some waveform within the atmosphere that causes regular forms of condensation that appear like this. These are nothing really new, the sceintific basis is pretty good for these clouds to be listed. It's a 2-D wave pattern with a good airmass boundary. It's definitely neat, but it's not like it's earth-shattering cloud formation.
not yet recognized by the World Meteorological Foundation
Not surprising, since it's called the World Meteorological Organization.
Animoog.org
I am by no means an expert or even amature cloud identifier, but those look like severe Altostratus Undulatus to me. And actually, ever since the summer of 2005, I've noticed them a lot here near Portland, Maine, when I never noticed them before. When they get well pronounced, it does look Armageddonish.
The question isn't THAT the climate is changing, but WHY and HOW the climate is changing. Is it part of the natural cycle of climate change? Is it caused by years of burning fossil fuels? Is it a side effect of cutting down the forests? Maybe it's tied to the weird sunspot activity, or the ocean saline currents. Perhaps it always happens just before the Earth's magnetic core switches polarity. Some say we are due for an ice age. Some say the Earth is getting warmer.
There's no shortage of speculation, just of solid conclusions.
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I see Latin scientific names as a separate namespace used to avoid ambiguity between descriptions and classification/labels. That way two things can appear alike (resulting in similar descriptions) but can still be concisely distinguished based on less obvious characteristics.