Up Above the World so High, Climate Change Could Kill Some Clouds in the Sky thewire.in

The Bollywood film Lagaan (2001) begins with the unfulfilled promise of monsoon clouds over a drought-stricken land and ends with a burst of rains and dancing. If a sequel were made a hundred years from now, it could have fewer clouds and possibly more drought. At least that is what a new study of the impact of global warming on clouds suggests. The word ‘cloud’ comes from the Old English ‘clūd’, which originally meant rock. Speakers of Old English named them so because the thick grey clouds over England looked like heavy, dark-grey masses of rock. But not all clouds are the same. While some look like rocks, others resemble puffy balls of cotton and wispy feathers. Try cloud-watching with kids, you might even spot an elephant in the sky!