As the community strives to understand near-term regional climate change, short-lived anthropogenic aerosols are expected to take center stage. Despite a few early attempts, aerosol impacts on the general circulation and hydrological cycle have not been examined in a systematic manner. In this talk, I will describe a top-down approach to disentangling the complex interaction between aerosols and regional climate, starting first from global-means before moving to zonal-means, and then to zonal asymmetries within a latitude band. A wide range of seemingly unrelated questions concerning indirect effects, black carbon, Hadley and Walker circulations, South Asian monsoon, tropical-extrotropical teleconnections and climate sensitivity will be discussed. Yet, with the help of observations, theories and numerical models, I will show that these questions are intricately related to one another, and can be best answered within one overarching framework.