Identify the type of cloud on the basis of the given characteristics: 1. High, thin, puffy white clouds of ice crystals that look like ripples 2. They appear between 20000 feet and 40000 feet above the Earth's surface 3. One of its types is called a 'mackerel sky' because the clouds resemble large fish scales, especially when they are coloured pink at sunset Select the correct answer.
- A.Altostratus
- B.Cirrostratus
- C.Altocumulus
- D.Cirrocumulus
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is D, Cirrocumulus. These are cirrocumulus clouds: high clouds of ice crystals arranged in small white puffs and ripples.
Clouds are grouped by height and shape. High clouds, roughly above 6,000 metres (about 20,000 feet), are made of ice crystals and carry the prefix "cirro". Cumulus means heaped or puffy, and stratus means a flat sheet. So cirrocumulus are high, thin, puffy clouds in rows or ripples, and their pattern of small patches looks like the scales of a mackerel fish, giving the name "mackerel sky". They are often lit pink or orange at sunrise and sunset and may signal a change in the weather.
A is wrong because altostratus is a middle-level grey sheet that dims the Sun, not puffy ripples. B is wrong because cirrostratus is a high, thin, smooth veil that causes halos around the Sun or Moon. C is wrong because altocumulus are puffy but form at middle levels and are made mainly of water droplets.
Exam tip: Cirro = high (ice), alto = middle, cumulus = heaped, stratus = layered; cirrocumulus = mackerel sky.
Practice Questions
View allWhich one of the following is applicable to collision-coalescence process of precipitation?
- A.Clouds which do not extend beyond the freezing level
- B.Clouds which extend beyond the freezing level
- C.All types of clouds
- D.Cirrocumulus cloud
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Collision-coalescence is the way rain forms in warm clouds, whose tops stay below the level where water freezes. In such clouds all droplets are liquid.
Read the full explanation →Identify the type of drainage pattern on the basis of the given characteristics :
1. It represents the most common pattern of streams and their tributaries
2. It occurs in areas of uniform rock type and regular slope
3. A map, or aerial photograph, shows a pattern like the veins on a leaf— smaller streams join the main stream at an acute angle
Select the correct answer.
- A.Dendritic
- B.Radial
- C.Trellis
- D.Centripetal
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A pattern that looks like the branches of a tree or the veins of a leaf, formed on uniform rock with a regular slope, is dendritic.
Read the full explanation →The Research Design and Standards Organization is the R&D wing of which one of the following organizations ?
- A.Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
- B.Indian Space Research Organization
- C.Indian Railways
- D.Defence Research and Development Organization
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The Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) is the sole research and development wing of the Ministry of Railways. RDSO is headquartered at Lucknow.
Read the full explanation →Which one of the following Indian States has recorded negative growth population as per Census 2011?
- A.Manipur
- B.Mizoram
- C.Tripura
- D.Nagaland
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Nagaland was the only Indian state whose population fell between 2001 and 2011; its decadal growth rate in Census 2011 was about −0.6 per cent.
Read the full explanation →Piecing together the puzzle of geologic time to create and analyze historical maps of the Earth is known as
- A.paleoclimatology
- B.paleogeomorphology
- C.paleolithology
- D.paleogeography
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Paleogeography is the study of the Earth's geography in the geological past, and its main product is a set of maps showing where continents, oceans, mountains and shorelines lay at different times.
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