Climate Change

Indirect Effect in Action
• The way aerosols affect clouds can be seen by the
image of ship tracks.
• You can clearly see that the plumes cased by the ships
passing under the clouds are much whiter/brighter than
the surrounding cloud.
• This is due to the fact that the clouds have an
increased number of smaller droplets (and thus
more surface area) to reflect sunlight. This causes
them to appear brighter and to reflect more sunlight back
to space.
21