No observational evidence was found for the so-called anomalous solar absorption by maritime water clouds through collocated aircraft measurements taken during the Japanese Cloud-Climate Study (JACCS) program. The aircraft experiment has been carried out by using two aircraft equipped with various instruments for wintertime stratocumulus clouds over an area centered at (29 <1S>DN, 129 ¿E) in the East China Sea. Here we have carefully analyzed solar absorption by the water stratocumulus clouds observed on February 2, 1998. The visible-band net fluxes measured above and below the cloud layer were almost the same within measurement accuracy; this means no substantial absorption in the visible spectral region. On the other hand, there were significant differences as much as 50--80 W m-2 between the near-infrared-band net fluxes measured above and below the cloud layer; this difference corresponds to absorptance of 6--10% of the total-band solar irradiance above the cloud layer. Without cloud particles, water vapor absorption was estimated to be about 4% of the total-band irradiance for the layer. Distributions along the flight legs of the measured visible-band and near-infrared-band absorptance were in phase in their positions with zero mean visible-band absorptance. The measured radiation budget averaged over long distances along the flight legs for the inhomogeneous cloud layers agreed well with theoretical counterparts calculated for plane-parallel, homogeneous cloud models based on the observed microphysical parameters. ¿ 2000 American Geophysical Union