Cloud Cover

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:

    That which is given to see
    At any moment is the residue, shadowed
    In gold or emerging into the clear bluish haze
    Of uncertainty. We come back to ourselves
    Through the rubbish of cloud and tree-spattered pavement.
    These days stand like vapor under the trees.
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)