Weight of a Cloud

Mike the Strike schrieb:

My memory from my atmospheric physics days is that the water content of
a nice cumulonimbus is around 1 gram per cubic meter. Assume the
smallest cloud is a cubic kilometer and that gives you a billion grams,
or a million kilograms, or a thousand metric tons of water. That's
ignoring the weight of the air, too.

Mike



More on the topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor

The chart on saturation fraction suggests much mo around 2% (16
grams) at a possible cloudbase and 0.1% (0.8g) close to the top.

Even more amazing: the Energy it takes to lift that amount of water
from ground level to near tropopause height!!! It's in the region of
the annual output of a small nuclear powerplant!

Regards
Marcel