Low, mixed-phase clouds containing ice and liquid are important for the heat balance in polar areas. Mixed-phase cloud thinning (MCT) proposes adding particles to clouds that initiate freezing during the polar night to thin them and make them disappear faster, potentially cooling the surface. This concept is still theoretical due to the complexity of polar cloud processes. Since the Southern Ocean naturally has fewer freezing particles, to assess MCT effects, we used satellite data to compare single-layer stratus clouds between the Southern and Arctic Oceans under similar conditions. Initial findings show that Southern Ocean clouds are less icy and thicker than Arctic clouds, supporting the MCT idea. However, stratus clouds are not more common in the Southern Ocean as expected. MCT's effectiveness at the top of the atmosphere is also unclear, requiring more research. Another uncertainty is MCT's impact on seeder-feeder effects, where ice from higher clouds falls into lower clouds, affecting their properties. Multi-layer clouds are common in polar regions, making this effect possibly significant. However, understanding MCT's impact on this process is challenging, partly due to difficulties in measuring liquid versus ice from space beneath other clouds.