In advertising, and in ordinary speech, we can hear about the lightness, airiness and weightlessness of clouds. But is it really so? Have you ever wondered how much a cloud weighs?
This question was asked by Peggy Lemon from the National Center for Atmospheric Phenomena in the United States and found out - 500,000 kg. This is how much the cumulus cloud weighs, which we see most often. To represent such a weight, Lemon suggests using an elephant as a base. An adult average elephant weighs about 6 tons, which means that one cloud weighs about 100 elephants.
The cloud weighing process is a fairly simple mathematical procedure. Scientists estimate that the density of water in a typical cumulus cloud is 0.5 grams per cubic meter. The next step is to find out the volume of the cloud. This can be done by the shadow it casts. According to Lemon, a typical cumulus is about a kilometer wide and roughly cubic in shape. So we get a cloud of 1 billion cubic meters in volume.
By multiplying, we get 500,000,000 grams of water droplets in a cloud, or 500 tons.
There is also an answer to the question of why such a weight moves freely through the air and does not fall. Clouds are made up of water droplets that are sometimes so small that they are virtually unaffected by gravity. Moreover, they are dispersed in a large space. The cloud is less dense than dry air (which, by the way, also has a lot of weight), which allows it to "float". As the density of the water increases, and the drops become heavier and larger, the cloud gradually "falls" - in the form of rain.
