What properties of land and water influence cloud formation?
Clouds form when water molecules saturate an air mass. Places on land that have significant elevation force air to rise, and with it water molecules that cool as the air rises and forms a cloud. If enough heating of air occurs on the ground, air becomes warmer and lighter and rises like air in a hot air balloon. When the air cools down, the vapor cools, liquefies, and it becomes a cloud. Clouds also form over land when there is a mixing of warm and cool air. Over water, the different areas of warmer and cooler water that correspond to differing depths form clouds in the same way as on land, due to the difference in air temperature. • Colorado River (pdf) – • Why do these lines follow each other? These two parallel lines are two layers of strata on the lower limb of a western sloping monocline. They are actually younger rocks that had previously existed on top of the monocline, but have since been eroded off to the base of the slope. Such layers of sediment tend to closely resemble each
