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Title: Clouds Can Communicate, Scientists Say
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URL Source: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010 ... ds-communicate-scientists-say/
Published: Aug 15, 2010
Author: By Jeremy A. Kaplan
Post Date: 2010-08-15 11:42:24 by gengis gandhi
Keywords: None
Views: 262
Comments: 11
PLANET EARTH Clouds Can Communicate, Scientists Say By Jeremy A. Kaplan Published August 13, 2010 | FoxNews.com Print Email Share Comments (117) Text Size Wikimedia Cumulus clouds swell in a blue sky. What might they be saying to each other? Little, fluffy and talkative? Clouds can communicate, a new paper suggests -- but what are they talking about? A new study has found that clouds "communicate" with each other, much like chirping crickets or flashing fireflies on a summer night. The surprising findings, published online in the journal Nature, may have significant implications for our understanding of the Earth's climate. So the next time you find yourself laying on your back picking out shapes among the clouds, mull on this one: Are they talking among themselves about you? "Cloud fields organize in such a way that their components 'communicate' with one another and produce regular, periodic rainfall events," explained Graham Feingold, a research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) and the paper's lead author. In other words, Feingold found clear evidence of self-organization in the regular patterns of rainfall and repeating growth of those floating puffs of cotton. YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN 8 myths about settling credit card debt Ten Worst Places to Live Ouch!10 Biggest Brand Nightmares of 2010 Best and Worst College Degrees for 2010 Grads WSJ: Apple Employee Cited In Alleged Kickback Scheme How does such synchronization come about? Falling rain cools the air as it descends. This creates downward air currents. These downdrafts hit the surface of the planet, flow outward, and collide with each other, forming updrafts. The air flowing up creates new clouds in previously open sky as older clouds dissipate. Then the new clouds rain, and the oscillating pattern repeats itself. "In a sense what's going on is that the clouds are communicating with each other by driving down to the ground. If you have a number of clouds doing exactly that, air is forced to go sideways from one cloud and meets the air from another," Feingold told FoxNews.com. Voila! cloud speech! Earlier theories about cloud structure explained that temperature change was at the heart of cloud generation, that warming and cooling shifts were the key forces. Precipitation as a driving factor is something of a radical shift. But talking clouds? That's even more radical. Feingold is nevertheless quite serious, citing a lengthy history of research into cloud communication. "If you go back far enough, the basic physics behind this phenomenon was recorded in the early 1900s by a French scientist," he explained. He was looking at the sun though a telescope and noticed convection patterns. Lord Rayleigh later put it into a theoretical framework, explaining the hexagonal patterns observed in the lab, Feingold told FoxNews.com. "1933 is the earliest report of patterns in the clouds," by a scientist known as Graham, he said. But Feingold thinks the idea of cloud communication might date back far further. "I wouldn’t be surprised if the ancients were looking up at the clouds and seeing patterns early on," he told FoxNews.com.
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#1. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
Clouds interacting based on their physics isn't unexpected. That is what meteorology is about. But saying they communicate is to suggest they are in some way sentient beings. And they aren't.
All I have to do is learn to speak Cloudish and I can forget about going to weather.com?
#2. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
#3. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
Waiting too late to oppose tyranny has always led to bloodshed.
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#4. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
#5. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
Feingold is nevertheless quite seriously deranged, perhaps unhinged...There. Fixed it.
Feingold is nevertheless quite serious,
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton
He (Gordon Duff) also implies that forcibly removing Obama, a Constitution-hating, on-the-down-low, crackhead Communist, is an attack on America, Mom, and apple pie. I swear these military people are worse than useless. Just look around at the condition of the country and tell me if they have fulfilled their oaths to protect the nation from all enemies foreign and domestic.
OsamaBinGoldstein posted on 2010-05-25 9:39:59 ET (2 images) Reply Trace
#6. To: TooConservative (#2) (Edited)
I wouldn't say "sentient", but it does kinda imply "living". Ants communicate, one might say viruses do as well, but I wouldn't call either sentient (though I could be wrong). If it were true about the clouds though, it might imply that praying to them or learning cloud-ese would be the answer to global climate effects. Who needs Al Gore?
But saying they communicate is to suggest they are in some way sentient beings. And they aren't.
Democrats don't mind war as long as they can have big government. Republicans don't mind big government as long as they can have war.
#7. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
Your tax dollars at work funding this.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency
Somewhere, Jimmy Carter is laughing and saying, "Finally! I won't be the worst President ever!"
#8. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
I always knew they were talking . . . about me !!
#9. To: PnbC (#6)
Well, I've read that scientists still debate whether viruses are considered living beings or not. They don't fit in some ways. Certainly ants communicate. Water vapor (clouds) don't. It's silly.
I wouldn't say "sentient", but it does kinda imply "living". Ants communicate, one might say viruses do as well, but I wouldn't call either sentient (though I could be wrong).
#10. To: TooConservative (#9)
I think it is entirely possible for information, and or radio signals to be bounced around clouds, and give scientists the impression that they communicate. Water vapor conducts electricity. Static electricity can be affected by radio waves, and magnetism. I might be wrong, but if clouds do indeed communicate, and are sentient, do you think they get all the basic cable channels for free, or are their clouds that act as descramblers so they can enjoy all the HD programming they can get?
It is better to be hated for what you are, than loved for what you are not. - Tommy The Mad Artist.
#11. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
I've never ever conceived of such an effort to make the planet seem to need to be rescued. Thermal dynamics and physics is not "communication", communication presupposes intelligence. Christ, what is wrong with people these days? What next, burning witches at the stake because a cow died?
"The more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished.... The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be." - Lao Tzu, 6th century BC
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