Cloud cover (also known as cloudiness, cloudage or cloud amount) refers to the fraction of the sky obscured by clouds when observed from a particular location. A planet surrounded by cloud cover would become an arctic wasteland while a planet without cloud cover would become a waterless desert where even reptiles are incapable of surviving and thriving (due to an excessive amount of greenhouse gasses and solar radiation that would develop).
Read more about Cloud Cover: Role in The Climate System
Famous quotes containing the words cloud and/or cover:
“On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me,
“Pipe a song about a Lamb”;
So I piped with merry chear.
“Piper pipe that song again”—
So I piped, he wept to hear.
“Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe
Sing thy songs of happy chear”;
So I sung the same again
While he wept with joy to hear.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“Every individual ought to know at least one poet from cover to cover: if not as a guide through the world, then as a yardstick for the language.”
—Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940)