The Book of Clouds

How to Read the Sky

Vincenzo Levizzani (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

218 Seiten

2026
Polity Press (Verlag)
978-1-5095-7238-0 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. April 2026)
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We spend a great deal of time living under the cover of clouds, but rarely do we look up and pay attention to them, and most of us know very little about what clouds are and the vital role they play in the Earth's climate and ecosystem. This is not true of Vincenzo Levizzani. As one of the world's leading experts on the physics of clouds. He has devoted his life to studying clouds, analysing their characteristics and passing this knowledge on to others.

In The Book of Clouds, Levizzani provides a marvellous introduction to the history and science of clouds - from the many ways that clouds have influenced art and culture to the way that they have been studied, classified and understood, from understanding how clouds form an distribute precipitation to understanding how they are affected by climate change. The result is a book that provides readers with everything they need to know to recognise different clouds, interpret their behaviour and understand what is likely to happen if we are foolish enough to disrupt the delicate balance between Earth and the skies that have blessed us with a habitable climate for millennia.

Exquisitely illustrated, The Book of Clouds offers a deep dive into clouds, droplets, crystals, graupels and hailstones among other things. It will be the indispensible book for anyone who has gazed upwards and wondered what to make of the different clouds and cloud formations that fill our skies.

Vincenzo Levizzani is Professor of Cloud Physics at the University of Bologna.

Introduction: People and clouds

1. Clouds

2. No cloud is like any other

3. How a cloud forms
Clouds and weather fronts
Clouds, lakes, seas, and mountains
Amarcord and fond memories of fog
The majestic thunderstorm
Large and very large thunderstorms
Have you ever been inside a tropical cyclone?
'Hurricanes' in the Mediterranean
Some more 'ordinary' cyclones
Clouds almost nobody has ever heard of

4. Journey among the hydrometeors
Hydrometeors
Aerosols and condensation
Droplets
The temperature falls, but by how much?
Ice crystals, nature's masterpiece
The many faces of atmospheric ice
Hail, at last!

5. When it's raining, let it rain
Warm clouds: has someone left the heater on?
Cold clouds, brrr!
There isn't just rain up there
Ice, treacherous ice, fraught with danger
How hailstones grow
One cloud rains, the other doesn't
Lightning
There's something strange up there

6. Inside the clouds

7. Meteorology and clouds

8. Changing climate, changing clouds?

Epilogue: Measuring the sky

Acknowledgements
A Cloudspotter's Glossary
Acronyms
List of Illustrations

Erscheint lt. Verlag	24.4.2026
Übersetzer	Stephen N. Lyle
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Naturwissenschaften
ISBN-10	1-5095-7238-4 / 1509572384
ISBN-13	978-1-5095-7238-0 / 9781509572380
Zustand	Neuware