Sensor synergy and close cooperation between experimentalists and modelers is required to gain more insight into complex cloud structures and processes. On a global scale, clouds have a strong cooling effect on our climate: more solar radiation is reflected back to space than thermal surface radiation is trapped in the atmosphere. However, because radiation reacts on the instantaneous cloudy atmosphere and not on some climatological mean, the physical processes leading to the overall radiative effect strongly depend on the spatial distribution and structure of clouds.
AFFILIATIONS: CREWELL, LOHNERT, SIMMER, AND VENEMA-Meteorologi-
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