Marine stratocumulus regions are important components of the earth radiation budget, yet models simulate the climate over these regions with critical errors. Improving understanding of aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions within marine stratocumulus will help improve numerical modeling of cloud radiative properties at a range of model spatial and time scales. This work focuses on understanding the air-sea interactions associated with the atmospheric boundary layer coupling with the stratus deck off northern Chile, a sparsely observed region. The emphasis will be on observing and parameterizing aerosol-cloud-drizzle processes and their influence on the surface forcing of the ocean (radiative and turbulent).
