Earth Expeditions: A Natural Cloud/Climate Laboratory

Southern Africa produces almost a third of the world’s vegetative burning, which sends smoke particles up into the atmosphere, where they can mix with stratocumulus clouds over the southeastern Atlantic Ocean. The Observations of Clouds above Aerosols and their Interactions (ORACLES) field study based in Namibia is investigating how these particles impact the clouds, which play a key role in both regional and global surface temperatures and precipitation, in order to help improve current climate models.