I can't sleep…
a cloud,
a bird,
a moment
— Thoughts (@ForTheTape, May 31, 2024)
Notes:
…clouds remain one of the least understood—or least reliably predictable—factors in our climate models…
“They are among the biggest uncertainties in predicting future climate change,” Da Yang, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Chicago, told me.Yang is a cloud expert—a cloud guy, really, drawn to their mysteries. He recently moved from California to Chicago, where he gets to see a lot more clouds on a daily basis. “I find clouds are beautiful to watch,” he said. “If I take an airplane, and I can see clouds down below or far away, I’m always fascinated by how rich the cloud organizations are. How they interact with each other …” He trailed off. Clouds are complex and ephemeral, which makes them difficult to fully understand. Yang listed for me key aspects of clouds for which we still lack comprehensive understanding: how they form, what determines their spatial scale, how long they can last. “Those sound like simple questions,” he said, “but they are actually at the forefront of the field.” […]
One major stumbling block is the resolution of climate models, or how finely or coarsely they represent the Earth; to represent individual clouds, which can be the size of a minivan or the state of Minnesota, would require models at a resolution finer than the current finest model. Climate modelers have recently begun to produce fine-scale models at the regional level, where they can zoom in on the individual details of clouds. But, Yang told me, stitching such snapshots together into a picture of the whole globe would exceed the capacity of the largest existing supercomputer……
— Zoë Schlanger, from “No One Really Understands Clouds. They’re one of the greatest climate mysteries left.” (The Atlantic, May 28, 2024)
DK Photo: May 29, 2024 @ 7:00 pm.
One thing I have learned in my time here: we all have a common love for the sky. How it undresses itself, revealing beauty each morning; how it moans seductively as it sinks into the darkness each evening…We peer longingly into it as if it truly may save us. Even those who never have believed in heaven, gaze lovingly, ache spilling from the recesses of the chest, pulling the inexplicable intensity of what is undefinable from our souls. Before this place, I thought I was alone, each time I gazed, into the scrawling shadow or into the way the light played through the cloud, but now, I just gaze and try to write the things which none of us can quite encapsulate in language. I gaze.
Photo: DK this morning @ 6:55 a.m. at Cove Island Park Marina. More photos of twilight to sunrise from this morning here
As I wash the dishes I am filled with an invigorating emptiness and amuse myself with the soap bubbles. The water comes out of the tap with a rhythm that demands music. I accompany it with bursts of whistling and a phrase from a nondescript popular song. I play with the lather, which is like a cloud in which seasonal colours gleam then fade. I grasp the cloud in my hand and distribute it over the plates, glasses, cups, spoons and knives. It inflates as drops of water run over it. I scoop it up and make it fly through the air and it laughs at me, and my sense of having time to spare increases. My mind is blank, as indifferent as the noonday heat. But images of memories descend from afar and land in the bowl of water, neutral memories, neither painful nor joyful, such as a walk in a pine forest, or waiting for a bus in the rain, and I wash them as intently as if l had a literary crystal vase in my hands. When I am sure they’re not broken, they return safely to where they came from in the pine forest, and I remain here. I play with the soapy lather and forget what is absent. I look contentedly at my mind, as clear as the kitchen glass, and at my heart, as free of stains as a carefully washed plate. When feel completely sated with invigorating emptiness, I fill it with words of interest to nobody but me: these words!
— Mahmoud Darwish, “A coloured cloud” in “A River Dies of Thirst“
Notes:
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