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Cloud Classification Questions and Answers

1.

Match each Latin root used in cloud naming with its meaning.
List I
A. Cirrus
B. Cumulus
C. Stratus
D. Nimbus
List II
1. a layer or sheet
2. a curl or lock of hair
3. rain
4. a heap or pile

Answer: A

The modern classification combines these roots, so a name such as cumulonimbus is read directly as a heaped rain cloud. Luke Howard's scheme of 1802 is the ancestor of the system still in use today. The roots are combined rather than replaced, which keeps the names readable.

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2.

The prefix alto in cloud names such as altostratus denotes

Answer: B

Correct answer: a cloud of the middle height range

In cloud nomenclature alto marks the middle étage - altostratus and altocumulus - roughly 2 to 7 kilometres in temperate latitudes. The high clouds take cirro instead, and vertical development is indicated by the genus itself, as in cumulonimbus, rather than by a prefix.

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3.

Assertion (A): The prefix alto does not indicate the highest clouds despite its Latin meaning.
Reason (R): In the cloud classification it was assigned to the middle étage rather than the upper one.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both are true and the reason gives the explanation. Altus means high in Latin, so the name is genuinely misleading, but the classification assigned the prefix to the middle level and reserved cirro for the upper. It is a convention of the nomenclature rather than a description, and the only remedy is to learn it as such.

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4.

Consider the following statements about the height étages.
1. The boundaries between étages vary with latitude.
2. The high étage extends higher in the tropics than at the poles.
3. The étage boundaries are fixed heights the world over.

Answer: D

Correct answer: 1 and 2 only

Statements 1 and 2 are correct: the étage boundaries are quoted separately for polar, temperate and tropical latitudes, and the high étage reaches about 18 kilometres in the tropics against roughly 8 at the poles. Statement 3 contradicts both - the boundaries are not fixed heights, for the reason the next item gives.

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5.

Assertion (A): The étage boundaries are quoted differently for tropical and polar regions.
Reason (R): The depth of the troposphere itself varies considerably with latitude.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both are true and the reason is the cause. Clouds are confined to the troposphere, and the tropopause stands at about 18 kilometres over the equator and 8 or so over the poles. The étages are therefore defined as fractions of that depth rather than as absolute heights, so a cloud at 8 kilometres is high-level in the temperate zone and middle-level in the tropics.

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6.

How many genera are recognised in the international cloud classification?

Answer: B

Correct answer: ten

Ten genera are recognised: cirrus, cirrocumulus and cirrostratus in the high étage; altocumulus and altostratus in the middle; stratocumulus, stratus, nimbostratus and cumulus in the low; and cumulonimbus, which spans them all. Below the genera come species, varieties and supplementary features, in a hierarchy modelled deliberately on biological classification.

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7.

A cloud is placed in exactly one genus because

Answer: C

The scheme is designed so that a given cloud belongs to one genus and no other, in the manner of a biological classification. Several genera may of course be present in the sky at the same time. The exclusivity applies to a single cloud, not to the sky as a whole.

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8.

Match each genus with its étage.
List I
A. Cirrostratus
B. Altocumulus
C. Stratocumulus
D. Cumulonimbus
List II
1. low
2. high
3. spanning all three
4. middle

Answer: D

Cumulonimbus is the classic example of a cloud of great vertical extent, with a base in the low étage and a top that may reach the tropopause. Its assignment to a single étage is therefore a convention rather than a description.

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9.

Stratiform clouds differ from cumuliform clouds principally in that stratiform clouds

Answer: A

The distinction reflects the kind of ascent that produced them, gentle and widespread against vigorous and localised. It is the most useful single division in the whole classification because it points directly at the physics.

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10.

Assertion (A): The stratiform and cumuliform division reflects how the cloud was formed.
Reason (R): Layered cloud arises from slow widespread lifting and heaped cloud from local convection.

Answer: B

Both are true and the reason gives the underlying process, and the appearance follows from it rather than being an arbitrary label. Knowing which kind is present tells an observer a good deal about the state of the atmosphere.

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