This work presents synergistic satellite, airborne and surface based observations of a Pocket of Open Cells (POC) in the remote south-east Atlantic. The observations were obtained over and upwind of Ascension Island during the CLouds and Aerosol Radiative Impacts and Forcing (CLARIFY) and the Layered Smoke Interacting with Clouds (LASIC) field experiments. A novel aspect of this case-study is that an extensive free-tropospheric biomass burning aerosol plume that had been