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:

    When the lamp is shattered,
    The light in the dust lies dead;
    When the cloud is scattered,
    The rainbow’s glory is shed;
    When the lute is broken,
    Sweet tones are remembered not;
    When the lips have spoken,
    Loved accents are soon forgot.
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

    Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)