I'm Moving to the Cloud

An accumulation of cumulus

I enjoy a work mass email in which the IT department announces something mundane to allemployees@ such as, the other day, subject line: “MUNIS Moving to the Cloud,” and I can subvert this to daydreams far more amusing.

I play a game where I take this prompt literally and decide it’s me and not this lucky Munis software who is migrating to the cloud. What should I pack (paper drink umbrellas obviously) and what would that cloud look like? What shape might the picnicking humans find in my chosen fluffball from the ground? Can the folks down there see me waving amidst the manatees and monkeys? Am I on a nimbus or a cumulus? How quickly will I fall through this reverie and crash back to Earth?

As with every thought I think I alone spawned, sure enough there’s a whole Subreddit on cloud-sitting that starts with someone sharing:

A convo ensues:

…after calculating, that neglecting air resistance, it takes about 12 seconds to reach the ground when falling from 3000 meters, what I assume is the average height of cumulus clouds, that would be the type of clouds that humans would imagine to sit on, there wouldn’t be any time left to think about anything. So sorry teacher. That would be my only and last thought. There is nothing more to tell.

A+

or:

Douglas Adams did roughly the same thing and expanded it to a chapter. The kid could’ve also described what he saw whilst falling. The premise is good but the execution is flawed.

So, what we can gather from this: it takes approximately a dozen seconds to die from my precarious pretend perch, and Douglas Adams can do it better.

Douglas Adams, as in the author of the multi-book series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Rob McKenna, a character in book 4, as summed up by Hitchhikers.fandom, is

an ordinary lorry driver who can never get away from rain, and he has a log-book showing that it has rained on him every day, anywhere that he has ever been, to prove it. He is because of this rather grouchy and resigned to never seeing the sun; he notes it even rained when he went abroad. He was described by the scientific community as a “Quasi Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer.” In the novel So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Arthur suggests that he could show the diary to someone, which Rob does, making the media deem him a ‘Rain God’ (something which he actually is) for the clouds want “to be near him, to love him, to cherish him and to water him.” This windfall gives him a lucrative career, taking money from resorts and similar places in exchange for not going there.

More of that passage from the book, which is less about going to the clouds than the clouds coming to you:

“And as he drove on, the rainclouds dragged down the sky after him, for, though he did not know it, Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him, and to water him.”

If we’re going to move all our devices—and all their precious data—to the cloud, might we want to invest in some dehumidifiers to keep our tech from getting tragically damp? Since we’re not talking about comfort-cushions in the sky but accumulations of water droplets that sooner or later will rain upon thee, it’s worth sorting them with some help from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There are not four, they assert, but 10 basic clouds. NOAA categorizes them according to their height: High-Level, Mid-Level, and Low-Level. The clouds we might remember from elementary science class in reality might mix into two. So instead of just cirrus, stratus, cumulus and nimbus you might more finely tailor your clouds from the menu of combos listed here:

• HIGH - Cirrus (Ci), cirrocumulus (Cc), and cirrostratus (Cs) are high level clouds. They are typically thin and white in appearance, but can appear in a magnificent array of colors when the sun is low on the horizon.

• MID - Altocumulus (Ac), altostratus (As), and nimbostratus (Ns) are mid-level clouds composed primarily of water droplets. However, they can be composed of ice crystals when temperatures are low enough.

• LOW - Cumulus (Cu), stratocumulus (Sc), stratus (St), and cumulonimbus (Cb) are low clouds composed of water droplets. Cumulonimbus, with its strong vertical updraft, extends well into the high level of clouds.

If any of these clouds might at least look dense enough to imagine sitting on (laws of science be damned!) it would certainly be a nimbus or cumulus (or cumulonimbus). There’s perspective to be gained from up here, as when I imagine myself hurdling around earth on the International Space Station. In the way of closer to home (and slower speed) cloud contemplation, for pleasantries’ sake you’d likely want to be on the cumulus for its optimistic cotton candy quality verses suffering the stewing anger of the pending storm sort of nimbus.

GEOGOZZ, CC BY-SA 4.0

As far as seeing shapes in these magical puffs, it’s a great game to play but also just human nature. We see patterns everywhere where there may be none, a phenomenon called pareidolia. Our most common tendency is attributing human faces to shapes, or face pareidolia. But there’s unlimited creatures and curiosities you can conjure in elaborate wallpaper, all kinds of things to decipher (and prove you’re crazy) from inkblots, and a whole phalanx of bunnies hopping in the clouds.

We impose ourselves—and meaning—everywhere.

The Guardian shares a handful of amazing cloud formations that perfectly resemble things we know (dolphin, dinosaur), care of the Cloud Appreciation Society and compiled in the book Clouds That Look Like Things, introed here:

At the Cloud Appreciation Society, we love finding shapes in the clouds, and we think everyone should do more of it. Dinosaurs, dragons … you name it, we’ve got it – as long as it’s made of tiny water particles suspended in the lower atmosphere. Finding shapes in the clouds is something we all did when we were young and for this reason it is the most inclusive form of cloudspotting. No great concentration is needed. Nor do you need to know your cumulus from your altostratus to see that the one over there looks like a flying saucer.

According to Amusing Planet, this society was formed “to foster understanding and appreciation of clouds, and to fight ‘blue sky thinking.’”

A clear blue sky has always been associated with good, happy weather—a perfect summer’s day, while cloudy skies are regarded as a metaphor for doom. Nothing could be more depressing, it seems, than to have ‘a cloud on the horizon.’ Gavin Pretor-Pinney decided that this has to stop. “Someone needs to stand up for the clouds,” he says. So in 2004, he started the Cloud Appreciation Society and few months later launched a website. People sent in their cloud photograph, which he put up on the gallery pages for others to look at. The early trickle of submission soon swelled to a torrent. Today, it has over 29,000 members worldwide from 83+ different countries, and many thousands of amazing images.

Here on the Society pages there are indeed many lovely and intriguing images contributed from folks all over, that keep coming daily, and there are also apparently many more than 10 types as the entries are tagged with species new to me (and NOAA) and often quite poetic and involving their interplay with light: Congestus | Fractus | Praecipitatio | Contrail | Homogenitus | Iridescence | Virga | 22° Halo | and of course, in the most essential imagination corner, Clouds That Look That Things.

Always consider the imperfect sky and seek shapes, perhaps with the CAS manifesto as your guiding principle:

WE BELIEVE that clouds are unjustly maligned and that life would be immeasurably poorer without them.

We think that clouds are Nature’s poetry, and the most egalitarian of her displays, since everyone can have a fantastic view of them.

We pledge to fight ‘blue-sky thinking’ wherever we find it. Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day.

We seek to remind people that clouds are expressions of the atmosphere’s moods, and can be read like those of a person’s countenance.

We believe that clouds are for dreamers and their contemplation benefits the soul. Indeed, all who consider the shapes they see in them will save money on psychoanalysis bills.

And so we say to all who’ll listen:

Look up, marvel at the ephemeral beauty, and always remember to live life with your head in the clouds!

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