Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Do you think it's possible to do an experiment on rain clouds (nimbostratus) being formed from thunderstorm clouds (cumulonimbus).
And the hypothesis that goes with it?

los0202 wrote:Do you think it's possible to do an experiment on rain clouds (nimbostratus) being formed from thunderstorm clouds (cumulonimbus).
And the hypothesis that goes with it?

I don't really see how atmospheric science can be done at the high school level. If you come up with a specific hypothesis, maybe some one here can think of a clever way to test it without too much equipment.


Louise

I am actually in middle school. The hypothesis I thought of is to prove a cloud is formed when water is transported verically through evaporation and lifting.

los0202 wrote:The hypothesis I thought of is to prove a cloud is formed when water is transported verically through evaporation and lifting.

Hi, your topic sounds quite interesting. I can see a couple of potential pitfalls that you should try to avoid. One is that your hypothesis is generally accepted as a fact. The project will probably be more interesting to you and to others if you test a question to which you really do not know the answer. I'd suggest that you start with that as a general topic, and do some work to refine your scientific question based on your own curiosity.

Another problem is that, as Louise said, you won't be able to take measurements at the scale of the atmosphere, or to measure vertical atmospheric water fluxes. To get around this, you could try to (1) run experiments on a small scale model or (2) test some smaller part of the problem (for example, how different conditions affect evaporation rates). How you design your experiment will depend on your exact choice of a topic.

Thanks.