Sounds pretty good to me... sorry I missed it! And Frank's invocation of "envelope" vs "shroud" seems correct and apt.
Now you are both enlisted to respond when Guerin asks you to go out and take a picture of your sky/clouds in some direction. > Steve, > > Before you came on FRIAM, during the slandering phase of my presentation, I > argued that a cloud consisted of a complex surface each point on which met > the following condition: the dewpoint temperature of the air of the air is > equal to the ambient temperature of the air. Furthermore, "inside" this > boundary, the dewpoint temp is above the ambient temperature, and outside it > is below. Both dewpoint temperature This explains why cumulus clouds have > flat bottoms: cumulus clouds are visualization of rising columns of air. As > the air rises, its pressure and temperature fall, and when they fall below > the dewpoint, we see the cloud.. Now this, like any description, is a model, > and leaves out a lot of complexity. One of the complexities omitted is the > fuzziness of the boundary, particularly at the top of the cloud. Another > complexity left out by the model is supper cooled water vapor, which I gather > occurs because water, to condense, has to find some particle to condense on. > So ! > there are parts of the cloud that are saturated but no condensation has > occurred. In a fire cloud, I gather, not only does the fire add water vapor, > it adds soot, so, I am guessing, condensation occurs more rapidly and also, > guess heaped upon a guess, the release of the latent heat in the water vapor > also occurs more vigorously than in a column of non fire related cumulus. A > third complexity arises from the heat realized by the freezing of the > condensed water. This two, requires nuclei, and so is delayed way above the > freezing level of the atmosphere. When the rising column hits the > stratosphere, there is a temperature inversion and further lifting ceases and > the cloud, now ice crystals, spreads out laterally in the characteristic > anvil. > > This all I believe because it was shown unto me by God. If God was wrong > about any of this, I do hope all you former pilots will correct me. > > Some day I am going to take a meteorology course. Perhaps I will enroll in a > meteorology program when I am 85. > > Nick > > Nicholas Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology > Clark University > [email protected] > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith > Sent: Friday, June 5, 2020 8:30 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Manifold Clarification > > >> I said that no physical object is a manifold. This may be a better >> answer to Nick's question. The envelope of a cloud, if it could be >> defined, might be a manifold depending on cusps etc. Those might be >> handled by combining manifolds of different dimensions. This would >> not be a realizable project in my opinion. >> >> Frank > More likely darn near a fractal surface... down to the size of a condensed > droplet of water? Ken Perlin's cloud-modeling comes to mind (multi-scale if > not literally fractal). > > But model(ed/able) as an idealized manifold based on the triple-point of > water (or is that only clouds forming hail or sleet?) > > Nick? mentioned "shroud" which I don't think has a mathematical definition > but i took it to mean something like a convex-hull (shrink-wrapped surface). > From work with Stephen on using imagery of clouds (or plumes) to calibrate > cameras and to estimate their shape as a function of time, we have looked at > things like silhouette analysis. > > Clouds and plumes are not entirely opaque and I believe that is because they > are "porous'... I'm not sure if there are examples in nature of fully > saturated water vapor... maybe only in a vacuum? Clouds are (I'm pretty > sure) condensed droplets of water vapor dispersed among air molecules (I > suppose I could read up more on cloud science). Plumes (smoke from a > wildfire) are a little more complex but have a significant component of water > vapor/droplets as well as hydrocarbon particulates? Guerin is surely much > more up on this. During the 2011 Cerro Grande Fire, we had *baked* pine > needles settling around our property... they were not burned, but may have > been fully charred (all volatiles pyrolized), probably in such an oxygen poor > environment that they couldn't burn. This was probably a "sorting" > process... smaller bits may have traveled further while larger ones (twigs > and branches) fell short(er)... > > - Steve > > > > - .... . -..-. . ...- --- .-.. ..- - .. --- -. -..-. .-- .. .-.. .-.. -..-. > -... . -..-. .-.. .. ...- . -..-. ... - .-. . .- -- . -.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > > - .... . -..-. . ...- --- .-.. ..- - .. --- -. -..-. .-- .. .-.. .-.. -..-. > -... . -..-. .-.. .. ...- . -..-. ... - .-. . .- -- . -.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ - .... . -..-. . ...- --- .-.. ..- - .. --- -. -..-. .-- .. .-.. .-.. -..-. -... . -..-. .-.. .. ...- . -..-. ... - .-. . .- -- . -.. 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