Cirrocumulus castellanus or Cirrocumulus castellatus is a type of

cirrocumulus cloud Cirrocumulus is one of the three main genus-types of high-altitude tropospheric clouds, the other two being cirrus and cirrostratus. They usually occur at an altitude of . Like lower-altitude cumuliform and stratocumuliform clouds, cirrocumulus ...

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Castellanus A castellanus (or castellatus) (from latin ''castellanus'', castle) is a cloud that displays at least in its upper part cumuliform protuberances having the shape of turrets that give a crenellated aspect. Some of these turrets are higher than th ...

'' is from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

meaning "of a castle". These clouds appear as round turrets that are rising from either a lowered line or sheet of clouds. Cirrocumulus castellanus is an indicator of

atmospheric instability Atmospheric instability is a condition where the Earth's atmosphere is generally considered to be unstable and as a result the weather is subjected to a high degree of variability through distance and time. Atmospheric stability is a measure of ...

at the level of the cloud. The clouds form when condensation occurs in the base cloud, causing

latent heat Latent heat (also known as latent energy or heat of transformation) is energy released or absorbed, by a body or a thermodynamic system, during a constant-temperature process — usually a first-order phase transition. Latent heat can be underst ...

ing to occur. This causes air to rise from the base cloud, and if the air ascends into conditionally unstable air, cirrocumulus castellanus will form.

References

External links

International Cloud Atlas – Cirrocumulus castellanus
Cirrus Cumulus {{Cloud-stub

See also

References

External links