If Clouds Really Had Silver Linings

Authors

  • Evangeline Walker The Centre for Interdisciplinary Science, University of Leicester

Keywords:

Idiom, Physics, Thermodynamics, Clouds, Every cloud has a silver lining

Abstract

Considering the old adage, that every cloud has a silver lining, this paper considers what conditions would be required to produce clouds with enough silver content to class them as ‘sterling’, as well as the properties the resultant cloud would have, such as density and mass. Taking these results into account, the paper demonstrates, using the Earth as an analogue, the planet required to produce such a cloud would need a surface temperature of 2460K and an atmospheric density of 101872kgm-3 at the planet’s surface.

References

Everett, E. (1972) How Clouds are Formed, Los Angeles Times, E5.

EngineeringToolbox, Silver (n.d.) Melting Point of Binary Eutectic Alloys, Homepage of The Engineering Toolbox, available: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/silver-alloys-melting-points-d_1431.html [Accessed 05/02/2015].

SMH & MM (2009) Silver Standards of the World, Online Encyclopedia of Silver Marks, Halmarks & Makers' Marks, available: http://www.925-1000.com/a_Standards.html [Accessed 05/02/2015].

Martinez, i. (1995) Properties of Solids.

University of Illinios (n.d.) Observed Dew Point Temperature, The World Weather 2010 Project, available: http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/maps/sfcobs/dwp.rxml [Accessed 05/02/2015].

LeMone, P. (2015) How Much Does a Cloud Weight? Available http://mentalfloss.com/article/49786/how-much-does-cloud-weigh [Accessed 05/02/2015].

Grotzinger, J., Jordan,T., Siever, R. & Press,F. (2007) Understanding Earth. 5th edn. New York: W.H Freeman & Co.

NESTA (2010) How Pressure Changes with Altitude in the Earth’s Atmosphere, National Earth Science Teachers Association, available: http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/pressure_vs_altitude.html [Accessed 22/02/2015].

NASA (2013) Earth Fact Sheet, NASA, available: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html [Accessed 22/02/2015].

Downloads

How to Cite

Walker, E. (2017). If Clouds Really Had Silver Linings. Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics, 4. Retrieved from https://journals.le.ac.uk/index.php/jist/article/view/769

Issue

Vol. 4 (2015)

Section

Articles

License

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.  All content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC-BY 4.0).