  Clouds are ubiquitous in extrasolar planet atmospheres and are critical to
our understanding of planetary climate and chemistry. They also represent one
of the greater challenges to overcome when trying to interpret transit
transmission spectra of exoplanet atmospheres as their presence can inhibit
precise constraints on atmospheric composition and thermal properties. In this
work we take a phenomenological approach towards understanding 1) our ability
to constrain bulk cloud properties, and 2) the impact of clouds on constraining
various atmospheric properties as obtained through transmission spectroscopy
with the \textit{James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)}. We do this by exploring
retrievals of atmospheric and cloud properties for a generic "hot-Jupiter" as a
function of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), \textit{JWST} observing modes and four
different cloud parameterizations. We find that most key atmospheric and cloud
inferences can be well constrained in the wavelength range ($\lambda = $ 0.6 -
11 $\mu$m), with NIRCam ($\lambda =$ 2.5 - 5 $\mu$m) being critical in
inferring atmospheric properties and NIRISS + MIRI ($\lambda =$ 0.6 - 2.5, 5 -
11 $\mu$m) being necessary for good constraints on cloud parameters. However,
constraining the cloud abundance and therefore the total cloud mass requires an
observable cloud base in the transit geometry. While higher SNR observations
can place tighter constraints on major parameters such as temperature,
metallicity and cloud sedimentation, they are unable to eliminate strong
degeneracies among cloud parameters. Our investigation of a generic
"warm-Neptune" with photochemical haze parameterization also shows promising
results in constraining atmospheric and haze properties in the cooler
temperature regime.
