How much does a cloud weigh and how much water is in it?

I got to lighten this blog up, the posts lately lack optimism and are overly grumpy! I suspect it is all due to this flu I got which is keeping me out of the pool and out of a meet next weekend.

So here goes: Above is an enormous cloud mass that a National Geographic photographer took in Texas. This cloud mass probably has a "fancy-schmancy" scientific name such as, Start running away in the opposite direction or else, but it got me to thinking about how much water could possibly be in a cloud that big?

The cloud above is nicknamed the "Texas Mother" by the photographer, Peter Carsten. The structure is perhaps tens-of-miles wide and certainly miles-upon-miles tall.

With that in mind, I looked up that a simple, lazy, cloud that is a kilometer-wide and a kilometer-tall has enough water content to weigh: 2.2 billion pounds.

Since a gallon of water weighs roughly 8.35 pounds, eight of these kilometer, sized, cubes would have enough water content to fill a cubic-mile or fulfill the amount of water that Los Angeles requires in a single year.

Yep, that's a trillion gallons! It's literally a "flying sea"


Cloud weight reference: [Link]

Gallon weight reference: [Link]

Los Angeles water usage reference [Link]

'Nat Geo' video - "Behind the photo: Flip Nicklin on Humpback Whales"

It's not the scale nor the composition that grabs me but rather the gravity and lack thereof that water affords us. [Link]

Amazing photo gallery link: [Link]

The article regarding humpbacks: [Link]

Glass 'cthulhu' or living thing?

If you guessed that it's alive, then you nailed it! National Geographic has a gallery of transparent sea creatures. The one above is labelled: "... A pelagic, or open-ocean, octopus gives off a neon glow in Hawaii. Most species of octopus have no internal skeleton, unlike other cephalopods. ..." But you knew that, right? You can also get wall paper of these guys. [Link]

Originally found at NotCot.org. :-)

4,000 to 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen wash off swimmers annually in oceans worldwide and it could be killing coral

National Geographic is a credible source and this is what they had to say: "... The chemicals; [in sunscreen], cause the viruses to replicate until their algae hosts explode, spilling viruses into the surrounding seawater, where they can infect neighboring coral communities.

Zooxanthellae provide coral with food energy through photosynthesis and contribute to the organisms' vibrant color. Without them, the coral "bleaches"—turns white—and dies. ..." [Link]

I suspect that this is something Hawaii, Australia, and the south pacific should take quite seriously; I trust it doesn't apply the northern Pacific