  Although water is almost transparent to visible light, we demonstrate that
the air-water interface interacts strongly with visible light via what we
hypothesize as the photomolecular effect. In this effect, transverse-magnetic
polarized photons cleave off water clusters from the air-water interface. We
use over 10 different experiments to demonstrate the existence of this effect
and its dependence on the wavelength, incident angle and polarization of
visible light. We further demonstrate that visible light heats up thin fogs,
suggesting that this process can impact weather, climate, and the earth's water
cycle. Our study suggests that the photomolecular effect should happen widely
in nature, from clouds to fogs, ocean to soil surfaces, and plant
transpiration, and can also lead to new applications in energy and clear water.
