Cloud atlas

A cloud atlas is a pictorial key (or an atlas) to the nomenclature of clouds. Early cloud atlases were an important element in the training of meteorologists and in weather forecasting, and the author of a 1923 atlas stated that "increasing use of the air as a means of transportation will require and lead to a detailed knowledge of all the secrets of cloud building."

History

Throughout the 19th century nomenclatures and classifications of cloud types were developed, followed late in the century by cloud atlases. The first nomenclature ("naming", also "numbering") of clouds in English, by Luke Howard, was published in 1802. It followed a similar effort in French by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1801. Howard's nomenclature defined four fundamental types of clouds: cirrus or thread-cloud, cumulus or heap-cloud, stratus or flat cloud (level sheet), and nimbus or rain-cloud (see Classification of clouds). There followed a long period of development of the field of meteorology and the classification of clouds, leading up to 1896, the International Year of Clouds. The history of this period is the subject of a popular book, The Invention of Clouds. During that time, the Englishmen Rev. Clement Ley and Hon. Ralph Abercromby, were influential. Both men died before the classification was settled, however. Ley wrote a book, Cloudland, that is well known to meteorologists. Abercromby contributed a number of papers on the subject, stressing the most important (and then novel) fact that clouds are the same everywhere in the world. He also wrote in collaboration with Hugo Hildebrand Hildebrandsson a detailed classification of clouds. This was adopted in Hildebrandsson's 1890 Cloud Atlas.

Cloud atlas (disambiguation)

A cloud atlas is a compendium of cloud types.

Cloud Atlas may refer to:

Cloud

In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol comprising a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water or various chemicals. The droplets or particles are suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body. On Earth clouds are formed by the saturation of air in the homosphere when air cools or gains water vapor.

Cloud types in the troposphere, the atmospheric layer closest to Earth's surface, have Latin names due to the universal adaptation of Luke Howard's nomenclature. It was formally proposed in December 1802 and published for the first time the following year. It became the basis of a modern international system that classifies these tropospheric aerosols into several physical forms which can be found at various altitude levels or étages.

Atlas

An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a map of Earth or a region of Earth, but there are atlases of the other planets (and their satellites) in the Solar System. Furthermore, atlases of anatomy exist, mapping out the human body or other organisms. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic features and political boundaries, many atlases often feature geopolitical, social, religious and economic statistics. They also have information about the map and places in it.

Etymology

The word atlas dates from 1636, first in reference to the English translation of Atlas, sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi (1585) by Flemish geographer Gerhardus Mercator, who might have been the first to use this word in this way. A picture of the Titan Atlas holding up the world appeared on the frontispiece of this and other early map collections.

History

The first work that contained systematically arranged woodcut maps of uniform size, intended to be published in a book, thus representing the first modern atlas, was De Summa totius Orbis (1524–26) by the 16th-century Italian cartographer Pietro Coppo. Nonetheless, this distinction is conventionally awarded to the Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius who in 1570 published the collection of maps Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.

Cloud Atlas (film)

Cloud Atlas is a 2012 independent German-Americanscience fiction film written and directed by Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer and Andy Wachowski. Adapted from the 2004 novel of the same name by David Mitchell, the film has multiple plots set across six different eras, which Mitchell described as "a sort of pointillist mosaic." The official synopsis describes it as "an exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution."Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, and Jim Broadbent lead an ensemble cast.

The film was produced by Grant Hill, Stefan Arndt, the Wachowskis, and Tykwer. During four years of development, the project met difficulties securing financial support; it was eventually produced with a $102 million budget provided by independent sources, making it one of the most expensive independent films of all time. Production began in September 2011 at Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany.