Where did the change begin?
Labs / Geography
How Clouds Form
Grab the bubble of air and drag it upward. As it rises it cools, and the moment its temperature meets its dew point a cloud appears at the lifting condensation level. Warm, moist air that keeps rising can turn unstable and tower into a thunderhead — watch the plot to see why.
Labs / Geography / How Clouds Form
How Clouds Form
Grab the bubble of air and drag it upward. As it rises it cools, and the moment its temperature meets its dew point a cloud appears at the lifting condensation level. Warm, moist air that keeps rising can turn unstable and tower into a thunderhead — watch the plot to see why.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Geography explains how places, people, and Earth systems affect one another. This model lets you change one factor and watch its effects spread across space.
Explore
Try the model
Tparcel 24.0 °Cbase 1.00 kmRH 60 %unstable — rising
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Raise the dew point until it nearly matches the surface temperature. Why does the cloud base drop toward the ground?
- Drag the parcel just below the cloud base and let go. Why does it sink back instead of floating away?
- Lift it past the cloud base and release. What makes it suddenly accelerate upward instead of settling?
- Turn off “latent heat above cloud base.” Without the warmth released by condensation, can the parcel still tower?
- Compare Humid tropics with Dry desert. Which one builds a tall cloud, and which barely forms one at all?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Connect the pattern to place: identify where the change begins, where its effects appear, and which process links those locations.
Check
Before you leave
What spatial pattern appeared?
Which process connects the cause and effect?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.