Whether a smoke or dust plume has a heating—or cooling—effect on the atmosphere can depend on whether it is above clouds.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using data provided by the CALIPSO team. Caption by Adam Voiland with information from Hiren Jethva (NASA Goddard) and Hongbin Yu (University of Maryland).
Published October 17, 2014
Data acquired September 10, 2014