From Aliens to Astronauts and Classics to the Cosmos, this year we will be reaching for the skies to celebrate Portsmouth: Space City. Inspired by the city’s motto Heaven’s Light Our Guide our programme will mark Portsmouth’s role as a centre of excellence for cosmology, astronomy and space technology – and science fiction will also feature, inspired by the ‘father of science fiction’ former Portsmouth resident HG Wells. Internationally renowned figures from the world of music and the arts, science and technology will take part in a wide range of events including an opening weekend featuring NASA Astronauts Andrew Thomas and Shannon Walker.

Cloud Appreciation Society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney will be giving a talk at the Portsmouth Festivities on 22nd June 2011. It is entitled “How to Collect Clouds” – details can be found here

Visit the Festivities website at www.portsmouthfestivities.co.uk

A strange vertical cloud was spotted on the 25th May 2011 off Port Townsend.

Lenore Maranan-Goldstein, the managing director of the Northwest Maritime Center & Wooden Boat Foundation, took these two photographs of the clouds as they sat just off the northern tip of Marrowstone Island.

You can see the full story here

French speaking cloudspotters might be interested to watch a short feature about The Cloud Appreciation Society filmed for a programme called Nouvo on RTS (Swiss television). The report features Cloud Appreciation Society members Danièle Siebenhaar and Riana Rakotoarimanana, as well as society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney.

And if you don’t speak French, you can watch Gavin talking in English about how and why he set up the society and the importance of cloudspotting as an antidote to modern life:

The renowned sky author and photographer, Storm Dunlop, has written a short piece for the Cloud Collector’s Reference section of our website with advice for anyone interested in photographing clouds.
Not only does Storm have just about the most appropriate name for any cloud enthusiast, he also knows a lot about sky photography as he is the author of the classic reference book Photographing Weather. In the piece, he offers helpful suggestions on cameras, settings and filters to help you take the best images of the sky.
Any budding cloud photographers should take a look at Storm Dunlop’s article Photographing The Sky.

Steve Constantelos of Chicago, USA recently wrote to tell us about a photo project he undertook last year.
Each day during 2010 Steve photographed the sky. Steve wrote “Unbeknownst to me, you and your fellow members of the Cloud Appreciation Society have been spreading the message of loving the local and the non-wholly-blue sky that I also hold near and dear to my heart. I am very happy I finally found you”.
Take a look at Steve Constantelos’s photostream to see the shots he has taken so far this year.

Thanks to member Andrew Maclean for sending us the link to this story….

Apparently, scientists at Qatar University claim to have developed artificial clouds to provide shade for stadia and training grounds at the 2022 World Cup.

Qatar, as we know, can get a little bit warm so the plan to air condition their stadia will be welcomed by the players, especially if it works!

But for cloud lovers, who have always marvelled at their beauty at no cost to ourselves, will be amazed that the cost of producing an artificial cloud is £310,000 ($500,000).

You can see the full story on BBC Sport

The OPAL climate survey is a way you can help scientists investigate how our activities affect the climate – and how the climate may affect us. Dr Geoff Jenkins, Cloud Appreciation Society Member 23638 who is based at the University of Reading, has got in touch to see if C.A.S. members based in England would be interested help with one aspect of the survey: observing the appearance of condensation trails.

You will all have seen condensation trails, or contrails, in the sky. They are the white lines left behind high-flying aircraft (described on page 63 of The Cloud Collector’s Handbook). The man-made clouds are formed when the air is cold (below about minus 40°C) – usually above about 10km (30 000ft). At this low temperature, water vapour ejected from jet engines (created when fuel is burnt) quickly condenses into ice crystals. If the air is moist enough, the contrail can stick around for a long time, and even spread out to form cirrus-like clouds – and these may be warming the climate (although much less than greenhouse gases do). The purpose of the survey is to try and find out more about how contrails affect our temperatures.

Since Cloud Appreciation Society members are such keen observers of the sky, they would be perfect participants in the survey. And it couldn’t be simpler to contribute. All you have to do is tell the boffins when you see contrails in the sky. They are interested in observations at any time of day and on as many days as possible between March and May this year. You don’t even have to register (unless you want to get a field pack and to keep track of your results). As they come in, the results are added to a contrail observations map.

Understanding the effect of these man-made clouds on our temperatures is of increasing imporance. The ubiquity of air travel means that more and more contrails spread across our skies with every passing decade. So, between now and the end of May (2011), if you are based in England, please contribute to the contrail study by reporting your observations on the OPAL website here:
http://www.opalexplorenature.org/contrails

9th February to 2nd March 2011
England & Co
216 Westbourne Grove London

Full details can be seen here

Barbara and Zafer Baran’s first major London show since 2003 includes a selection from two current photographic projects: Turner’s View and Star Drawings. Although different in approach, each series deals with an aspect of the skies and heavens: Turner’s View is an extension of the artists’ earlier, land-based documentary work, and Star Drawings is a product of their lifelong interest in experimental photography, astronomy and drawing.

Completed towards the end of November 2010, the front of this private house in Camden by multi-award-winning London architects Patel Taylor features a ‘sea and sky’ image provided by Richard Weston Studio. The image was scanned at very high resolution from an Oregon ‘thunder egg’ – a mineral similar to agage. The image was printed onto silk and laminated between two layers of glass by specialist architectural glass-maker Hourglass of Havant. The silk-in-glass images form a series of angled louvres to provide privacy and reduce heat gains from the sun – laminating films cut out the UV light that would otherwise fade the fabric.

Richard Weston’s carves using mineral images were a big hit at Liberty’s ‘Open Design Call’ last February and their development is to be covered in a new, seven-part BBC2 series, entitled ‘The Next Big Thing’ and scheduled to be broadcast in March-April this year.

Paraglider pilot Kym Fielke has a lot of experience of clouds; watching them, flying through, above and below them.

During 2010 he shot over 8800 photographs to create his master timelapse sequences in South Australia around Adelaide, Mt Lofty Ranges, Fleurieu Peninsula, Mid North and Flinders Ranges.

You can watch this wonderful video and read his account here

Our friends at the Royal Meteorological Society have set up a new club called “The Weather Club”.

You can join for a yearly membership fee of £25.00 and you will receive four copies of their magazine “The Weather” in which Cloud Appreciation Society founder Gavin Pretor-Pinney writes a short column about clouds.

You can visit their website here where you will find more information, features, news and an ‘ask the experts’ section.

Cloud Appreciation Society member Jay Brazzell recently entered this sun halo photograph to a National Geographic photography contest and it has made it through the preliminaries to their website.

Jay says of his photograph “A temperature inversion was the cause of a spectacular sun halo display over Silvercreek/Granby Colorado. When a morning temperature of -27 and a heavy ground fog mingled the result was what started as crystalized water vapor (Diamond Dust) and became a wonderful sun halo followed by a double sun halo.”

You can give Jay your support here

Cloud watcher Greg Wright sent through this very interesting article from the Science Daily website.

Meteorologists analyzing data from a closely-packed group of five satellites have identified a decrease in cloud cover over the Arctic. They find this alarming because cloud cover absorbs some of the heat in sunlight, stopping it from warming the surface of the earth. It is possible that this loss of cloud cover is contributing to global warming.

The full story can be seen here

The Bruce Castle Museum will be holding an evening talk on Wednesday, 24th November 2010.

The talk is entitled “The Invention of Clouds: Luke Howard, the Father of Meteorology”

Richard Hamblyn, author of the book of the same name, explores the work of Luke Howard and the classification of clouds.

The talk accompanies the exhibition about Luke Howard, The Man Who Named The Clouds, which runs until 19th December 2010

This is a free event at Bruce Castle Museum, Lordship Lane, Tottenham, London, N17 8NU

Doors open at 7pm.

Our friends at “The Weather Shop” have invited members of the Cloud Appreciation Society to their “Winter Weather Wonderland” on Saturday, 4th December between 10am and 4pm.

The Weather Shop is a great location for that speacial or interesting gift for Christmas including complete weather stations, weather forecasters, traditional barometers and more. You can call into their East Sussex store for technical advice and demonstrations or visit their website here

Daniele Siebenhaar's A-Z of clouds

Cloud Appreciation Society member Danièle Siebenhaar who hails from Switzerland has been searching out a cloud alphabet. She has been hunting clouds in the shape of letters and has now found all of them, from A to Z.

Danièle uses her images to produce birthday cards for friends and family. We congratulate her on her achievement, and think that she should release the images as a typeface – that way, we can use it instead of Helvetica when we next send out the Cloud Appreciation Society newsletter.

Her cloud alphabet was reported in the UK’s Metro newspaper and the Swiss newspaper, Tages-Anzeiger. Proud as she is of her collection, Danièle insists that some of her letters don’t look as clear as she’d like, and so she has vowed to continue her important alphabetic quest.

Franz Ossing of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and Pieter Roelofs of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam have collaborated to produce an in-depth analysis of Hendrick Avercamp’s work focusing mainly on his skies and the weather depicted in his paintings.

“Hendrick Avercamp almost invariably painted or drew calm and stable weather conditions with stratiform clouds”.

“His painting ‘Enjoying the Ice’ which was done c. 1610-20 shows a layer cloud with cumuliform heaps which meteorologically can be identified as a stratocumulus near sunset”

The full article can be found here and is extremely insightful and informative – well worth taking a few minutes to delve into.

August this year saw Cloud Appreciation Society member Ron Bishop visit The Cloud Bar at Anderby Creek on the east coast of Lincolnshire, we believe Ron to be our furthest travelled international visitor to the Bar.

Ron is a pilot for Qantas airlines and lives near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Whilst at the bar he was interviewed by Radio Lincolnshire and gave a fascinating insight into life as an airline pilot and his occupational involvement with, and leisure time interest in clouds.

Ron has submitted a number of photos for the gallery taken from his office window on the flight deck.

Lower cloud formations were not visible during the visit by Ron, Ian the society Photo Editor, and Ian’s Wife Carol, who he stayed over with in Lincolnshire, but high Cirrus and Cirrostratus were observed.

Cloud Appreciation Society member, Kate Jordan-Moore has drawn our attention to clouds being featured at the 12th edition of the Architecture Biennale of Venice.

The exhibition runs from 29th August to 21st November at the Giardini and other venues in Venice. ‘Cloudscapes’ is an indoor cloud created in an 800m2 room in the Venetian Arsenal and forms the central installation in this most prominent of spaces. It was created by German climate engineering company Transsolar and Tetsuo Kondo Architects.

You can see more about the installation here and watch a video here and a further link to images has been sent in by cloudspotter Peter Kaiser.

CAS founder Gavin Pretor-Pinney comments that this is not the first time that clouds have been employed in architecture. It was done most notably at the Swiss Expo in 2002 by the architects Diller and Scofidio who designed the Blur Building which consisted of a cloud created over a lake. You can see more about this here and watch a video of it here

This is the title of a insightful and entertaining article by Christopher Middleton included in the Daily Telegraph on 10th September 2010.

Christopher describes his visit to Britains first Cloud Bar at Anderby Creek near Skegness. He writes “Spend an hour on top of the Cloud Bar (no drinks, it’s a little fort) and you become an instant expert on telling your “altos” (four to six miles high) from your “cumulos” (anything lower). As for “cirros”, they don’t start until eight miles up, identifiable because of their, well, wispiness (cirrus in Latin means a strand of hair)”.

He also gives wide mention of the Cloud Appreciation Society and has some interesting and descriptive quotes from Gavin Pretor-Pinney, our photo gallery editor, Ian Loxley and CAS member Mike Rubin, a glider pilot from Hampshire.

The full article can be found here and includes some cloud definitions at the end.

BBC TV’s weatherman Richard Angwin will be attending a charity event in support of an orphanage in Southern India at St Michaels’ Church, Broad Street, Bath. The event will be held at 7.15pm on Saturday, 16th October 2010.

Richard will be talking about “50 years of TV weather” and there will be refreshments available.

Jamie Costello, Head of Physics at Sutton Grammar School and Cloud Appreciation Society member sent in this image of Cumulus at 20,000ft.

The photograph was taken by a group of children taking part in a school project. He says “It took a good deal of work to get this shot but it was worth it. Google Earth tends to take shots with clear sky. It is lovely to see some of the trails of clouds formed in some of the other photos.”

Sponsored by the Institute of Physics the students created the entire payload including flight computer which modulated a GPS signal into a de-codable radio signal. They also had sponsorship from the Dorking and District Radio society and a donation of batteries from Battery Force.

Jamie added “Although we found the payload, not everything worked and we are going to launch again soon- ish”.

You can see the full project details by clicking here

Karen Kingston, author of ‘Clear your Clutter with Feng Shui’, recently posted a blog entitled “Why cloud collecting can be good for you”. She describes the passtime as “etherically refreshing and psychologically uplifting” – a very apt description!

She gives notible mention to both “The Cloud Collectors Handbook” and “The Cloudspotter’s Guide” although the main focus of the article is how clouds affect our mood on a day to day basis. She writes “looking up is good for you. Just the simple act of looking up when you feel down changes your psychological condition and raises your energy. And developing a relationship with the skies above allows your consciousness to expand to fill bigger spaces and your creativity to soar.”

It’s an inspired and uplifting article. Well worth a read

Radio 4’s ‘So You Want to be a Scientist’ NLC (Noctilucent Cloud) project brings together amateur Welsh scientist John Rowlands, 41, based on Anglesey, with The University of Bath’s Professor Nick Mitchell and his atmospheric research team. John’s entry was one of four finalists chosen by a panel of eminent scientists from over 1300 entries.

Bath University is providing access to the latest VHF radar, based in Sweden and NASA satellite observations to measure wind speeds and temperatures in the mesosphere, where NLC form, which lies some 50 miles (82km) above the earth – about 10 times higher than the highest normal weather clouds. The experiment will try to predict the onset of a cold phase of the 5-day planetary wave, a huge oscillation in winds within the mesosphere that may influence the occurrence of NLC. Later in the summer, John and Nick will try to predict when NLC might form,
and the BBC’s weather service will run a noctilucent cloud forecast on suitably clear nights. They aim to get as many people as possible out under the night sky and enjoying one of nature’s most beautiful and eerie sights.

NLC are predominantly seen in the northern and north-eastern part of the sky from late May until early August each year. The mesosphere is the coldest part of the earth, dipping to about -150 degrees Celsius. NLC ice crystals most likely nucleate on meteoric dust particles, as
this is where shooting stars burn-up as they enter the earth’s atmosphere.

The image above is of sealions and antenna is a VHF radar used to measure the wind velocity within the mesosphere. This one is in Antarctica, but an identical unit based in northern Sweden will be used for the BBC experiment.

There is a Facebook Page (BBC controlled) about the experiment here and the University of Bath Research pages can be found Visit the website here

Jets and turboprop aircraft leave unusually shaped clouds in their wakes. (Credit: Alan Sealls)

Society member David Benn recently came across this article on the Science Daily website.

Mysterious clouds are produced when aircraft inadvertently cause rain and snow. This cloud ‘seeding’ is caused when the aircraft climbs or descends in certain atmospheric conditions and causes narrow bands of rain or snow to form.

This phenomenom has triggered speculation and wonder whenever the blue-sky holes have been sighted, even as far back as the 1940s.

The full article can be found here and is well worth a read!

There are also some very good photographs of hole punched clouds here – thanks to Glenys Chew for this link.

Undulatus Asperatus was first identified last year by Cloud Appreciation Society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney and is currently being researched by Reading University.

The US National Weather Service writes:

“Undulatus asperatus (or alternately, asperatus) is a rare, newly recognized cloud formation . . . The clouds are most closely related to undulatus clouds. Although they appear dark and storm-like, they tend to dissipate without a storm forming. The ominous-looking clouds have been particularly common in the Plains states of the United States, often during the morning or midday hours following convective thunderstorm activity.”

You can read more and see some very good photograps here

Kristin Nielsen has drawn our attention to this wonderfully relaxing website. Add gentle rain to your environment. Enhance your music. Sleep Better. Relax.

Listen here and play your favourite music simultaneously

Sunday 6 June – 1.30pm to 4.30pm

Bruce Castle Museum invites you to join them for this fun and celebratory afternoon to launch the film of Luke Howard and the Clouds (kindly supported by OPAL). Indulge yourself with cloud-themed food and drink, whilst meeting Luke Howard and finding out about his life. You can even have a go at being a cloud watcher, learn how to identify the clouds by their names and predict the weather. Find out too how to make a cloud using ice! And be inspired to create your own cloud artwork with our local artist. Free and lots of fun for all the family.

Full details can be found here

Before

After

Paul Western shares our affinity for the sky and when he came across a burnt out car in his local woods decided to improve upon the eyesore by painting it with a sky pattern.

A very artistic and interesting way to improve the view!

Amateur photographer Mike Davies from Cadoxton Neath, has always been interested in photography since a very young child, and loves to take photographs of weather, the wilder the better, but he also looks to the skies for interesting cloud formations which he often gets screened on BBC Wales and ITV1 Wales along with them being screened on the weather slot on NBC Augusta.

He has also been a loyal member of the “Cloud Appreciation Society” since its concept where members from all over the world send in photographs of unusual cloud formation.

Mike was approached by the magazine Nature Geoscience for a cloud photograph which they spotted on the Cloud Appreciation Society forum for publication on the front cover of their April edition which is available in book shops and on line.

Nature Geoscince mentions the cloud on the front cover as:

“Ice clouds in the tropical tropopause layer have a key role in dehydrating air that is entering the stratosphere. Cloud-chamber measurements suggest that their high humidity can be explained if heterogeneous ice nucleation on glassy aerosols is a significant nucleation mechanism in this region. The image shows cirrus clouds over Neath, South Wales, UK. Image by Mike Davies.”

Mike tells us he is on cloud nine over this wonderful scoop and here is Mike “reaching for the skies”

You can see the front cover here

Cloud enthusiast John Rudolph has brought to our attention this wonderful website showing a collection of cloud structures from space. It also has detailed information about the formations.

The website states that while observing the Earth from the height of 500-5000 km it is possible to notice that the cloudy envelope of the planet is a ranked rather than a chaotic accumulation of clouds as far as it concerns their forms. These forms either repeat themselves or differ but in any event they reflect definite process taking place in the atmosphere. The outward appearance of CS remains invariable within a year and on the whole does not depend on their geographical location.

You can read more and enjoy the site here

Cloud Appreciation Society founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney adds “this is a fantastic new perspective for members to look at”

Cloud Appreciation Society Member, Brian Tunnard would like to extend an invitation to other members & anyone else who likes flying stuff, to join his newly formed Cloud Hoppers Forum on Yahoo. It’s free, and is a place where you can share your opinions on any topic you like, but obviously, mainly about Flying stuff.

Here is the link to it The Cloud Hoppers Paramotor Club (Yahoo Forum)

This exhibition at the Bruce Castle Museum, Lordship Lane, London, N17 8NU tells the life and achievements of Tottenham Local Hero Luke Howard, the Father of Meteorology and the Namer of the Clouds. Amongst the museum’s own exhibits on display are three of Luke Howard’s own watercolours of clouds – which are rarely seen on public show – and also a portrait in oils of Luke by John Opie (kindly on loan from the Royal Meteorological Society). Other items have been borrowed by various members of the Howard family and local Quakers.

The exhibition runs until 19th December 2010. It has something for everyone and it will be used by schoolchildren in particular. A lively film has been produced to accompany the exhibition about the Clouds and Luke Howard, with the generous support of the OPAL project and Imperial College London; it was directed by Anna Slingo; a current member of the Howard family – Oliver Howard – is one fo the film’s voiceovers. There is also programme of events at the museum over the year to celebrate Luke Howard – see here for up-to-date information of forthcoming events. The exhibition and the associated educational programme has been kindly supported by the Royal Society as part of its Local Heroes Programme to commemorate the Society’s 350th anniversary.

Open Wednesday to Sunday 1 – 5pm (for general public; groups may book at other times – contact the museum for further details)