Reconciling observations and models of the indirect effect from cloud to climate scales

Aerosol cloud interactions are potentially strong but also highly distributed in space and time, posing a challenge to both observing and modeling these processes. Coarse resolution modes of analysis such as GCMs and satellite imagery are needed to provide a global view, but often obscure the relevant process-level information. Cloud-scale models are, conversely, often restrictive in the processes they represent relative to observational scales. Here we explore the discrepancies between modeled and observed indirect effects at both the cloud and climate grid-box scales. Reconciling observations and models across these scales will provide a new and alternative path toward understanding and representing the role of aerosol in cloud and climate processes and narrow the uncertainty in associated radiative forcing estimates.