A unique illustrated guide to clouds, cloud shapes, and the artists who have painted them. The mystery of clouds has fascinated scientists and artists alike. This exceptional book shows you how to use meteorological techniques of nephology to recognize these distant and variable forms. It catalogs, classifies, and measures each type—including recently discovered ones—taking into account their height, size, texture, arrangement, modifications, and movement. The book combines a lively and engaging narrative from one of today's leading meteorologists with an essay on the historical art of clouds, including numerous spectacular cloud studies by some of the greatest artists who looked to the sky. It presents a "taxonomy" approach to identification, applying the basic laws of geometry to quantify and measure clouds and cloud forms. It highlights artists who painted clouds from a scientific perspective, such as John Constable, Frederic Edwin Church, J.M.W. Turner, and Caspar David Friedrich. It tells the stories of naturalists and painters who attempted to capture the many different incarnations of clouds. It explains the physics of clouds, from the basic components of Earth's atmosphere to the formation and evaporation of clouds, their colors and shadows, rainfall development, and the evolutionary timescale of clouds. It discusses the classification and naming of clouds. It serves as a user-friendly reference manual for low, medium, and high cloud types. Includes charts, information, and a glossary of terms. Pages: 224, Year of Publication: 0422, Dimensions: 21.6x21.6cm