Look up, look up at the sky, and see every cloud that you meet unexpectedly

All living beings look down on the ground,

Only human beings have been given a face that can look up at the stars and gaze at the sky.

— The Metamorphosis, Roman poet Ovid

Watching the cloud is probably one of the easiest pleasures in the world to achieve, because all you need to do is: look up and look at the sky.

What kind of cloud will be waiting for me today?

This is some of the clouds recently photographed by the book critic Jun as the sunrise crowd (Anya / photo)

On Douban, there are some small groups that simply stare at the clouds every day, such as "the time limit for appreciating the clouds", "the cloud painting team", "shooting clouds every day", etc., and what they do is to capture the instantaneous changes of the clouds they see through photography and painting at any time.

This yearning for the sky and clouds is probably our most simple and direct pleasure as human beings—every cloud that we encounter unexpectedly is the best healing that the sky gives us. In Britain, Gavin Pratt-Pinney spent more than a decade gathering a large number of cloud enthusiasts, and through this hobby founded a world-wide for-profit organization, the Cloud Appreciation Association.

As the manifesto of this association put it: "We consider the clouds to be the poetry of nature, the most equal in her work, because everyone can have a wonderful view of them ... If we had to continue the monotonous life of looking up at the clouds day in and day out, life would become boring. We're trying to remind people that clouds are expressions of atmospheric emotions that can be interpreted like human facial expressions. We believe that the cloud is prepared for dreamers whose contemplation is beneficial to the soul. In fact, all people who consider the shape they see will save money on psychoanalytic bills. So we say to all who are willing to listen: look up, marvel at the beauty of the moment, and always remember to live in the clouds. ”

That's it, look up and look at the clouds together!

The following is an excerpt from One Cloud a Day, and the illustrations used in the text are from the book. It has been authorized by the publishing house to publish.

One Cloud a Day, by Gavin Prett-Pinney, translated by Wang Yanping and Zhang Chao, Beijing Times Chinese Literature Bureau, January 2022 edition.

cumulus

Cumulus clouds over Sarasota, Florida, USA (Maria Lyle/Photo)

A shot through the heart, Sim Richardson at Stansted Airport in Essex, England.

Ring zenith arc

Ice crystals in a delicate layer of cirratus clouds form a zenith arc, photographed by Christina Alico (member number 30559) in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Sometimes referred to as the "smile of the sky," the ring zenith arc is an optical effect that looks like an upside-down rainbow. The circumferential zenith arc is actually a halo phenomenon, that is, it is not formed by raindrops, but by the refraction of sunlight by ice crystals in clouds.

The color of the ring zenith arc is brighter and more vivid than the rainbow. You may be curious as to why so many people are unaware of this striking optical effect. One of the reasons why the ring zenith arc is not widely known is its position in the sky. It does not appear near the horizon like a rainbow, but in the sky. The zenith arc is like drawing an arc at the location of the zenith, an optical phenomenon that is usually overlooked – except, of course, for cloud viewers.

The ring zenith arc formed by feathered cirrus clouds, photographed by Beth Holt in Yuma County, Arizona, USA.

The ice crystals in the feathered cirrus cloud refract the sunlight to form a zenith arc, an optical effect formed by the clouds of the High Cloud Family, whose color is purer than the rainbow. The white part of this image is either a feathered cirrus cloud or a feather from the tail of a bird of paradise blown off by the wind above the troposphere.

Pod-like altocumulus clouds

Pods of Altocumulus appear at the eastern tip of the French Pyrenees, near the Spanish border, photographed by Ian Boyd Young.

Pod clouds have a distinctive disc-like appearance, usually formed near mountain ranges, and their name lenticularis comes from latin meaning "lentils". The name was given because no one could figure out which Latin word meant flying saucer.

Pod-like cumulus clouds bathed in the sunset bear a striking resemblance to the contours and formations of the Grand Canyon below. John Bigelow Taylor in Arizona, USA.

Pod-like cirrocumulus clouds

Pod Cirrocumulus becomes distorted by turbulence in the Leeward Winds of the Sierra Nevada, in which Stephen Ingram (membership number 7328) was photographed in California, U.S.

This pod-like altocumulus looks like you're going diving in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, photo by Terrance Pong.

Horseshoe vortex and pale cumulus clouds

Throwing the ball over the hula hoop, Edward Hannen in Patterson, New Jersey, USA. The clouds here are called horseshoe vortexes and pale cumulus clouds.

Light leakage into layered altocumulus clouds

Light leaks into layered altocumulus clouds, photographed by Bobby Jenkinson (member 39335) in Dorset, Uk.

Light leakage into layered altocumulus clouds, which is named as follows: "Alocumulus" is the name of a genus of clouds. Cloud is the type of cloud, a total of ten types. Altocumulus refers to the lumps of clouds in the mesocloud family in the troposphere. "Layered" is the name of a cloud species, meaning that clouds are laid in a layer that covers a large area in the sky. "Leaky cloud" is a variant of the name that refers to gaps between cloud clumps, rather than being connected into a more continuous layer. In other words, it means "those beautiful, small, fluffy clouds scattered across the sky," and in Latin, it makes the name sound more formal.

cumulus

A fluttering cumulus cloud in the Thorn Mountains in the northern German state of Bairn.

Cirrus band

Delicate cirrus bands sweep across the sky as if a paintbrush were sweeping across the canvas, and is photographed by ISS Commander Alexander Gerst over the west coast of South Africa.

The Flash tiptoes across the Bahamas, photographed by Michael Sharp (19947).

Fortified Stratus and Cirratus

Mixed Skies, Colin Enzer (member number 43050) in Coronbe-Le-Schwarzer, In the Voivodeship of Haute-Marne, France.

The clouds that make up this mixed sky are called fortified Stratus and Cirrus, and they may have formed on top of distant Cumulonimbus clouds. In addition, there is an optical effect known as the twilight bar in the figure. The Romantic poet Shelley wrote in his 1813 poem "Queen Mab": "When these distant golden feather-like clouds / covered with a layer of purple shadows / like islands appear on the surface of the dark blue sea." (See Queen Maibu, published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House in 1983, translated by Shao Xunmei.)

Cirrus clouds

Cirrus clouds, by Eta Gus in Cape Town, South Africa.

Hook cirrus clouds

Hook cirrus clouds, by Sarah Nicholson in the town of Comage, Cape Town, South Africa.

Hook Cirrus, Sauron Hauge (member number 33981) in the village of Gefninger on the Danish island of Zealand.

Stacked clouds

The clouds of waves (also known as the waves) curl like meringue on green hills, near the town of Staxborough, Vermont, United States, photographed by Keith Edmonds (member number 41937).

Also known as the Kelvin-Helmholtz wave, the cloud is named after the 19th-century scientists Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz, who together studied turbulence at the boundary of a flowing fluid. When there is a difference in the velocity between the two streams of air, the presence of so-called wind shear, an unstable vortex is formed, which in turn forms this rare and fleeting cloud.

Text/[e] Gavin Pratt-Pinney

Excerpts/Ann also

Editor/Qing Wang

Introduction Proofreader/Liu Jun