Subject: Plasma clouds

Q16: What are plasma clouds?

A16: They are a Fractint fractal and are similar to fractal mountains. Instead of a 2-d table of heights, the result is a 2-d table of intensities. They are formed by repeatedly subdividing squares.

Robert Cahalan has fractal information about Earth's Clouds including how they differ from plasma clouds.

Fractal Clouds Reference by Robert F. Cahalan (cahalan@clouds.gsfc.nasa.gov)

http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/~cahalan/FractalClouds/

Also some plasma-based fractals clouds by John Walker are available.

Fractal generated clouds

http://ivory.nosc.mil/html/trancv/html/cloud-fract.html

The Center for the Computation and Visualization of Geometric Structures also has some fractal clouds.

http://www.geom.umn.edu/graphics/pix/General_Interest/Fractals/

Two articles about the fractal nature of Earth's clouds:

1. "Fractal statistics of cloud fields," R. F. Cahalan and J. H. Joseph, Mon. Wea.Rev. 117, 261-272, 1989
2. "The albedo of fractal stratocumulus clouds," R. F. Cahalan, W. Ridgway, W. J. Wiscombe, T. L. Bell and J. B. Snider, J. Atmos. Sci. 51, 2434-2455, 1994