Can sea fog be inferred from operational GEM forecast fields?

Lorenzo de la Fuente, Yves Delage, Serge Desjardins, Allan MacAfee, Garry Person, Harold Ritchie

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Three cases of widespread sea fog in Lunenburg Bay, Nova Scotia were used to evaluate the suitability of operational regional GEM forecast fields for inferring advection fog occurrences. Verification scores suggest that the objective analyses contain significant departures from observations that will affect model accuracy, given the sensitivity of fog condensation microphysics. Dew point depression (ES) scores show larger differences compared to temperature, with both influenced by surface characteristics. For objective analyses and GEM forecasts ES less than 2 C seems to match fog satellite images better than the physical threshold ES less or equal to 0 C. In addition the GEM forecasts show a general tendency towards drier conditions near the surface, therefore reconfiguring GEM to better represent condensation in the boundary layer is proposed
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1303 - 1325
Number of pages23
JournalPure and Applied Geophysics
Volume164
Issue number6-7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2007
Externally publishedYes

Cite this