Explain the role of convection in cloud formation.?

What will be an ideal response?


ANSWER: When surface air gets heated up a hot "bubble" of air—a thermal—breaks away from the warm surface and rises, expanding and cooling as it ascends. As the thermal rises, it mixes with the cooler, drier air around it and gradually loses its identity. Its upward movement now slows. Before it is completely diluted, subsequent rising thermals often penetrate it and help the air rise a little higher. If the rising air cools to its saturation point, the moisture will condense, and the thermal becomes visible to us as a cumulus cloud. On the outside of cumulus clouds, the air motions are downward, which is caused in part by evaporation around the outer edge of the cloud, which cools the air, making it heavy. Another reason for the downward motion is the completion of the convection current started by the thermal. Cool air slowly descends to replace the rising warm air. Therefore, we have rising air in the cloud and sinking air around it.?

Environmental & Atmospheric Sciences

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