Seeking the interaction between clouds and aerosols

These figures show optical thickness (left) and effective radius (right) of the marine stratocumulus clouds appeared in a stable stratified airmass off the coast of California. In image of upper left, stripe-like structures of small cloud particle were found. They are thought about with change of cloud microphysics by smoke of ships navigating over the ocean surface, and continental natural-origin aerosols. It is pointed out that this event can change radiation budget of the Earth, and the possibility which gives a big influence to climate change. Cloud and aerosol observed with GLI are made use of assessment of climate change mechanism and climate forecast in the future.