The impact of landform structure on the formation of fog - Numerical simulations with COSMO-FOG

Abstract

The development of fog is very sensitive to the physical and thermodynamical structure of the surface layer. Especially turbulent heat and moisture fluxes at the earth's surface and in the atmosphere have an effect on duration and intensity of fog events. Spatio-temporal patterns of the surface properties control these fluxes which depend in a complex way on physical conditions such as local soil properties, soil moisture, radiation received at the surface, specific land use and orography. In the same way the soil-canopy-atmosphere interactions influenced the formation and dissipation of fog. Thus, the influence of the surface layer on the formation of fog is investigated. In order to take the high spatial variability of landform structure into account, numerical simulations are performed with the three-dimensional fog forecasting model COSMO-FOG. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.