Although aerosols have long been considered to exert a cooling influence on the regional climate due to direct and indirect radiative forcing, persuasive evidence of the response to this forcing has been lacking. Here, we analyze the regional patterns of climate change in the Southeast US during the period 1949--94 to search for a fingerprint of aerosol radiative forcing. The results show that direct and indirect radiative forcing of both natural (such as Pinatubo volcanic aerosols) and anthropogenic aerosols (such as those transported from the polluted regions of US) may be responsible for the regional cooling trend in the Southeast during the past 46 years. Lack of availability of long term measurements precludes a rigorous cause-and-effect analysis. Circumstantial evidence presented here amply justifies immediate establishment of a network of measurements of aerosol optical depth and cloud reflectivity in the southeastern US. ¿ 1998 American Geophysical Union