<P> After centuries of speculative theories about the formation and behavior of clouds , the first truly scientific studies were undertaken by Luke Howard in England and Jean - Baptiste Lamarck in France . Howard was a methodical observer with a strong grounding in the Latin language and used his background to classify the various tropospheric cloud types during 1802 . He believed that the changing cloud forms in the sky could unlock the key to weather forecasting . Lamarck had worked independently on cloud classification the same year and had come up with a different naming scheme that failed to make an impression even in his home country of France because it used unusual French names for cloud types . His system of nomenclature included twelve categories of clouds , with such names as ( translated from French ) hazy clouds , dappled clouds and broom - like clouds . By contrast , Howard used universally accepted Latin , which caught on quickly after it was published in 1803 . As a sign of the popularity of the naming scheme , the German dramatist and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe composed four poems about clouds , dedicating them to Howard . An elaboration of Howard 's system was eventually formally adopted by the International Meteorological Conference in 1891 . This system covered only the tropospheric cloud types , but the discovery of clouds above the troposphere during the late 19th . century eventually led to the creation separate classification schemes for these very high clouds . </P>
<P> After centuries of speculative theories about the formation and behavior of clouds , the first truly scientific studies were undertaken by Luke Howard in England and Jean - Baptiste Lamarck in France . Howard was a methodical observer with a strong grounding in the Latin language and used his background to classify the various tropospheric cloud types during 1802 . He believed that the changing cloud forms in the sky could unlock the key to weather forecasting . Lamarck had worked independently on cloud classification the same year and had come up with a different naming scheme that failed to make an impression even in his home country of France because it used unusual French names for cloud types . His system of nomenclature included twelve categories of clouds , with such names as ( translated from French ) hazy clouds , dappled clouds and broom - like clouds . By contrast , Howard used universally accepted Latin , which caught on quickly after it was published in 1803 . As a sign of the popularity of the naming scheme , the German dramatist and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe composed four poems about clouds , dedicating them to Howard . An elaboration of Howard 's system was eventually formally adopted by the International Meteorological Conference in 1891 . This system covered only the tropospheric cloud types , but the discovery of clouds above the troposphere during the late 19th . century eventually led to the creation separate classification schemes for these very high clouds . </P>
who developed the classifications we use for clouds
who developed the classifications we use for clouds
Luke Howard Jean - Baptiste Lamarck
Luke Howard Jean - Baptiste Lamarck