an average cloud weighs
Dear Cecil: In your column on the weight of a cloud versus that of a 747, you state: Now of course, it's true that weight isn't the same as mass, and that a cloud put on a scale wouldn't weigh anything. Yuck! The weight of an object equals its mass times the acceleration due to gravity, 9.8 meters per second squared. Atmospheric scientist Jim McQuaid and meteorologist Felicity Aston weigh a cloud. Clouds are very heavy. Even a small cumulus cloud can weigh as much as two elephants and scientists estimate that an average-sized cumulus cloud could contain as much as 200 tonnes of water. Cumulonimbus clouds, which are up to 10 times denser and 1,000 times larger than cumulus clouds, could weigh as much as one million tonnes. I didn’t know that a cloud could weigh that much. Well, there is 3.5896421501278e+20 (358,964,215,012,780,000,000 (358 quintillion)) gallons of water on Earth. So I would say that there could be as much as double that, or less then half of that, in the atmosphere of the entire planets atmosphere. Clouds look so delicate and light that it's hard to think of them as having any weight at all. But beneath their fluffy exteriors they're packed full of water. A typical non-storm cloud contains millions of very tiny water droplets. Alone, these droplets only weigh about 0.5 to 1 gram per cubic meter of cloud. Cloud droplets are spherical and the density of water is known, so the number and size of the droplets can be measured in a known volume (usually one cubic centimetre). Multiply this by the total volume of the cloud and you can calculate its weight. In your column on the weight of a cloud versus that of a 747, you state: Now of course, it's true that weight isn't the same as mass, and that a cloud put on a scale wouldn't weigh anything. This fine but crucial distinction gets you off the hook in the argument you're having with your coworker.. Yuck! A typical cumulus cloud (the most common cloud) is about 1 cubic kilometer in volume and 2 km above ground. Air density is estimated to be at about 1.007 kg/m3. The clouds (water droplets) are less dense and come close to 1.003 kg/m3 (which is also why they float). There are estimated to be 1,000,000 cubic meters of droplets in an average cumulus cloud. The weight can be calculated using this equation (density by volume by a factor): 1.003 kg/m3x 1,000 x 1 km3 = 1,003,000,000 kg. Which is over a billion kilograms of droplets or close to 2.2 billion pounds. The clouds (water droplets) are less dense and come close to 1.003 kg/m3 (which is also why they float). There are estimated to be 1,000,000 cubic meters of droplets in an average cumulus cloud. Which is over a billion kilograms of droplets or close to 2.2 billion pounds. Assuming a blue whale is close to 160 (160,000 kg) tones in weight, a cumulus cloud weighs as much as 6,268.75 blue whales! But, they are most certainly not. According to scientists, the weight of the average cumulus cloud is 1.1 million pounds! Think about that for a moment. This means that at any given moment, there are millions of pounds of water floating above your head. That’s the equivalent of 100 elephants. During the BBC series Operation Cloud Lab, atmospheric scientist Jim McQuaid and meteorologist Felicity Aston flew an airship through a small cumulus cloud in an attempt to weigh it.
1.1 million pounds