A new development is more serious. The Cloud Appreciation Society has suggested that the name asperatus be given to clouds that portray a particular kind of turbulence.
Other, more dramatic examples can be seen at the BBC page, A New Kind of Cloud?, at National Geographic, New Cloud Type Discovered?, and, of course, at the Cloud Appreciation Society, 'Asperatus', a new variety of cloud?
Every schoolkid knows that there are four main types: nimbus, cirrus, stratus, and cumulus. (Actually, there are many cloud types, although many of the names are derived from the four listed above. Some are not: noctilucent clouds, contrails, funnel clouds, to name a few. See the Wikipedia page.) This classification had stood since 1953. Why mess with it now? If you do, there'll be committee meetings and newspaper articles. People will be chanting "Teach the Controversy!"
Then we will have to change all the textbooks (assuming the Texas Board of Education goes along with the scheme, which may not happen easily).
Comments
I'm not sure what to make of the first part of your article. Mammatus has been a recognized cloud form for decades. I have two meteorology books dated 1981 and 1982 which describe mammatus clouds. Where you being 'tongue in cheek'?
However the asperatus name is new to me. Thanks for the links.
Posted by: Jim | June 8, 2009 8:18 AM
As long as we're naming clouds after body parts, why don't we call the circular formation in the right margin of that first picture the "testiculatus", and the three cloud formation directly under the mammatus (the two circulars and the cylindrical) the genitalus formation?
We can probably name a whole bunch of others this way, too. The smaller ones in the background at left can be the pimplus, for example, and the circular pairs in the background at right can be the eyeballus. There's really no end to this....
Posted by: Ian | June 9, 2009 7:33 AM
This new "Asperatus" is a Gravity wave cloud. Gravity waves are fast moving and dynamic formations.
Posted by: Bob | June 29, 2009 3:52 PM
This new "Asperatus" is a Gravity wave cloud. Gravity waves are fast moving and dynamic formations.
Posted by: Bob | June 29, 2009 3:52 PM