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:

    If you wish --
    ... I’ll be irreproachably tender;
    not a man, but—a cloud in trousers!
    Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930)

    There is reason in the distinction of civil and uncivil. The manners are sometimes so rough a rind that we doubt whether they cover any core or sap-wood at all.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)