Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
3-12
DOI: 10.1007/s13131-010-0045-8
http://www.hyxb.org.cn
E-mail: hyxbe@263.net
Abstract
Using the observations from ICOADS datasets and contemporaneous NCEP/NCAR reanalysis
datasets during 1960-2002, the study classies the airows in favor of sea fog over the Huanghai (Yellow) Sea in boreal spring (April-May) with the method of trajectory analysis, and analyzes
the changes of proportions of warm and cold sea fogs along dierent paths of airow. According
to the heat balance equation, we investigate the relationships between the marine meteorological
conditions and the proportion of warm and cold sea fog along dierent airow paths. The major
results are summarized as follows. (1) Sea fogs over the Huanghai Sea in spring are not only warm
fog but also cold fog. The proportion of warm fog only accounts for 44% in April, while increases as
high as 57% in May. (2) Four primary airow paths leading to spring sea fog are identied. They
are originated from the northwest, east, southeast and southwest of the Huanghai Sea, respectively.
The occurrence ratios of the warm sea fog along the east and southeast airow paths are high of
55% and 70%, while these along the southwest and northwest airow paths are merely 17.9% and
50%. (3) The key physical processes governing the warm/cold sea fog are heat advection transport,
longwave radiation cooling at fog top, solar shortwave warming and latent heat ux between airsea interfaces. (4) The characteristics of sea fog along the four airow paths relate closely to the
conditions of water vapor advection, and the vertical distribution of relative humidity.
Key words: spring sea fog over the Huanghai Sea, airow paths, water vapor ux, heat advection,
vertical distribution of water vapor
1 Introduction
Among Chinese oshore waters, sea fog occurs the
most frequently over the Huanghai (Yellow) Sea. The
Huanghai Sea fog is characterized by the vastness of
area, large number of days of occurrence, extended duration of the fog season, and signicant seasonal variations. Reducing both horizontal and vertical visibility over the sea and coasts, sea fog severely aects all
means of transportation, which include marine shing,
rig drilling, commercial shipping, military operations,
airplane ights and highway travel, and is one of the
causes for serious accidents. Due to the limited obser-
Foundation item: This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos
40675013 and 40906010; the China Meteorological Administration project for popularizing new techniques under contract No.
CMATG2007M23; the scientific and technological planning project from Guangdong Province under contract No. 2006B37202005.
The work of Wang Xin is supported by City University of Hong Kong Research Scholarship Enhancement Scheme and the City
University of Hong Kong Strategic Research Grants 7002329.
Corresponding author, E-mail: hj@grmc.gov.cn
HUANG Jian et al. Acta Oceanol. Sin., 2010, Vol. 29, No. 4, P. 3-12
datasets and contemporaneous NCEP/NCAR reanalysis datasets during 1960-2002, the prevailing paths
of airow resulting in fog over the Huanghai Sea in
spring (April and May) are investigated by backward
trajectory and cluster analysis, and the occurrence ratios of the warm and cold fog along each prevailing
airow path are examined. Besides, according to the
heat balance equation, the key marine meteorological
conditions associated with the warm and cold fog are
discussed. The text is organized as the following. The
data and methodology used in this study are introduced in Section 2. Section 3 analyzes the warm/cold
fog ratios and associated heat and water vapor advection, and the vertical distribution of relative humidity
along dierent path of airow, and further investigates
the physical mechanisms of fog maintenance. The conclusions are in Section 4.
2 Data and methodology
2.1 Data
The data used in this study include a 43-year
(1960-2002) set of observations from the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set
(ICOADS) compiled by the National Climate Data
Center (NCDC) (Slutz et al., 1985; Woodru et al.,
1987; Bottomley et al., 1990). Being the most complete and comprehensive dataset of observations in
the world, ICOADS is mainly comprised of measurements taken on commercial, military or research vessels, mooring buoys and other types of maritime platforms. The observations are made up of a series of
independent texts that report on SST, wind direction,
wind speed, air temperature, dew point temperature
and weather phenomena in every three hours. Additionally, the contemporaneous NCEP/NCAR reanalysis datasets (Kalnay et al., 1996), which are available
four times daily at 2.5 2.5 grid points at 1000200
hPa are used in this study.
Due to the marine environment and communication condition, surface reports from ICOADS are
not always believable. In this study the rigid quality control processes are applied as follows. (1) Only
highly reliable records, based on quality control mark
of ICOADS, are available. (2) According to ship call
letters, observed time, locations and content, the observed datasets are tested one by one. The duplicate
reports and wrong reports on land were deleted. (3)
The observation reports of the Huanghai Sea are tested
by climatological means, referring that the variations
of oceanic and atmospheric variables are limited in
climatic ranges. For example, in this paper limits for
SST, air temperature and sea level pressure are in
HUANG Jian et al. Acta Oceanol. Sin., 2010, Vol. 29, No. 4, P. 3-12
Fog samples
279
387
Warm fog
44.1
57.6
Cold fog
55.9
42.4
HUANG Jian et al. Acta Oceanol. Sin., 2010, Vol. 29, No. 4, P. 3-12
Fig.1. the airows resulting in fog over the Huanghai Sea in a. April and b. May (The dot denotes the
location of air mass in every hour).
T-NW
30.1
13.7
Path
T-SW
21.1
18.6
T-E
21.5
26.6
T-SE
27.3
41.1
T-NW
17.9/82.1
47.2/52.8
T-E
55.9/44.1
66.7/33.3
T-SE
68.3/31.7
69.9/30.1
T-SW
44.7/55.3
49.1/50.9
HUANG Jian et al. Acta Oceanol. Sin., 2010, Vol. 29, No. 4, P. 3-12
The T-NW shows that air mass moves southwardly from the continent to the Huanghai Sea
(Fig.1), which thus closely relates to the cold and dry
air and frontal systems in spring. The fog mechanism
for this path is more complicated than that of other
paths, which is likely to be the evaporation fog resulting from cold and dry air mass, or frontal fog forming
in the warm sector of frontal cyclone (Wang, 1985),
even the advection cooling fog resulting from the warm
and moist air mass which is modied by the underlying
surface (Zhang and Ren, 2010). From Table 3, given
air mass moving from the northern continental area,
warm fog takes up 17.9% along the T-NW in April,
and increase to 47.2% in May. It is speculated that in
May the weakening of northerly cold and dry air mass
(Zhou et al., 2004) is the possible reason for higher
ratio of warm fog along T-NW.
The T-SW is a southwest or west airow origin
in the Huanghai Sea or adjacent waters, which was
less mentioned in previous literatures. The ratios of
warm fog along T-SW in April and May are 44.7%
and 49.1%, respectively. This airow is characterized
by the slowest moving speed among four airow paths
of, and results in almost the same ratios of warm and
cold fog in April and May.
The T-E and T-SE are the most popular airows
associated with sea fog over the Huanghai Sea (Wang,
1985; Wang et al., 2004). These two paths of airow
are characterized by the high ratios of warm fog and
the signicant month-to-month changes. For the T-E
warm fog takes up 55.9% in April, and increases to
66.7% in May. For the T-SE the ratios of warm fog
in April and May are as high as 68.3% and 69.9%.
With the weakening East Asian winter monsoon from
April to May, the ratios of warm fog in four paths
are higher in May than those in April, indicating the
seasonal change during the period of Asian monsoon
transition from winter to summer monsoon.
The above results indicate that the characteristics of sea fog over the Huanghai Sea in spring are
associated closely with the airows originating dierent regions. Since the T-NW usually relates to frontal
systems or cold and dry air over the continent the characteristics of fog along this airow path is complicated.
The occurrence ratio of cold fog along T-SW airow
path is relatively high. In contrast, the T-E and T-SE
airow paths are in favor of occurrence of warm fog.
It is clear that the characteristics of fog depend on the
marine meteorological conditions along these airows.
3.3 The key physical progresses inuencing
characteristics of sea fog
Sea fog is the phenomenon that the water vapor
condenses into tiny liquid water droplets in the marine atmospheric boundary layer, which is governed
by complicated micro physical processes in its formation, development and persistence. Sea fog is involved
with these physical processes of turbulent transportation, radiation eect, settlement of fog droplets, entrainment at fog top and so on (Lewis et al., 2004).
Little has been known of the eects of these physical
processes on heat and water vapor balance in dierent
sea fog. Especially, there is little knowledge about how
these physical processes inuence the air-sea temperature dierence in the lowest layer of fog.
Using the heat balance equation given by Nicholls
(1984) and Findlater et al. (1989), the following discusses the main physical processes associated with
warm and cold fog. The heat balance equation for
sea fog layer given by Nicholls (1984) is:
h(de /dt) = 0 + h + S + uTa + Ro Rh
(1)
(2)
(e )o = (e )o + (L/cp )(q)o
(T )o + (L/cp )(q)o
(3)
HUANG Jian et al. Acta Oceanol. Sin., 2010, Vol. 29, No. 4, P. 3-12
(T )o =
(6)
u(q)o S u(T ) 4T 3 (T )o + Rh
(5)
According to Eq.(5), the sign of temperature difference between air and sea (T )o is dependent on
longwave radiation at fog top Rh , total solar radiation absorbed by fog layer S, latent heat ux
(L/cp )cq u(q)o and the advection of heat u(T )a .
The terms of sensible heat ch u(1 + a0 ) and longwave
radiation between air and sea surface 4T 3 can only
inuence on magnitude of air-sea temperature dierence.
Dierent from longwave radiation at fog top, the
total shortwave radiation absorbed by fog layer depending on the solar altitude angle and cant always warm the fog layer. It works only during daytime and reaches its maximum at noon. However,
the magnitudes of S and Rh are relative constant,
HUANG Jian et al. Acta Oceanol. Sin., 2010, Vol. 29, No. 4, P. 3-12
Fig.2. the heat advection of (a)T-NW,(b) T-E, (c) T-SE and (d) T-SW path of airow in May (Units:
Kms2 106 ) (The contours denote the magnitude of ux).
HUANG Jian et al. Acta Oceanol. Sin., 2010, Vol. 29, No. 4, P. 3-12
Fig.3. the water vapor advection ux of (a) T-NW, (b) T-E, (c) T-SE and (d) T-SW paths of airow in
May (Units: gm1 hPa1 s1 104 ) (The vectors stand for the magnitude and direction of ux, and the
contours denote the magnitude of ux).
HUANG Jian et al. Acta Oceanol. Sin., 2010, Vol. 29, No. 4, P. 3-12
Fig.4. the vertical distributions of relative humidity of (a)T-NW,(b) T-E, (c) T-SE and (d) T-SW paths of
airow in May (%) (The Huanghai Sea is located between 33 N and 39 N).
eously, clear sky and more dry air at high level increase
the longwave radiation cooling at fog top and evaporation at sea surface, which is evidently in favor of
fog maintenance. However, for T-E and T-SE airow
paths, the strong water vapor transportations cause
the high relative humidity at high level. The resulting larger vapor pressure decreases the eciency of the
longwave radiation cooling. On the other hand, it is
very likely to form cloud layers over fog layer and cut
o the heat transport to outer space by fog-top longwave radiation. Therefore, the patterns of water vapor
advection and vertical distribution of relative humidity at lower level troposphere may be the key factors
determining whether sea fog is cold fog or warm fog.
4 Conclusions
Based on the data from ICOADS and NCEP/
NCAR reanalysis datasets, the characteristics of sea
fog along dierent airow paths over the Huanghai Sea
in spring are investigated. The marine atmospheric
conditions associated with four airow paths are also
discussed according to the heat balance equation. The
main results are the following:
(1) The airows resulting in sea fog over the
Huanghai Sea in spring have four distinctive paths:
the northwest airow from the continental area to the
north Huanghai Sea, the east airow from the southern Korean peninsula, the southeast airow from the
HUANG Jian et al. Acta Oceanol. Sin., 2010, Vol. 29, No. 4, P. 3-12
Acknowledgements
We are thankful to Prof. Bin Wang, Department
of Meteorology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu and
Prof. Huang Fei, Department of Marine Meteorology,
Ocean University of China, Qingdao for their constructive comments and suggestions.
References
Angstrom A. 1912. Note on the relation between time of
sunshine and cloudness in Stokholm, 1908-20 Archiv
Matemat Astronom and Physik. B17, No 15
Bottomley M, Folland C, Hsiung J, et al. 1990. Global
Ocean Surface Temperatures Atlas (GOSTA). Joint
Meteorological Oce and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Project, 20 +iv pages, and 313 plates
Byers H. 1930. Summer sea fogs of the central California
coast. Publ Geogr, 3: 291338
Cho Y, Kim M, Kim B. 2000. Sea fog around the Korean
Peninsula. J Appl Meteo, 39: 24732479
Draxler R R. 1996. Trajectory optimization for balloon
ight planning. Weather and Forecasting, 11: 111
114
Emmons G, Montgomery R. 1947. Note on the physics of
fog formation. J Meteor, 4: 206 Findlater J, Roach
W, McHugh B. 1989. The haar of north-east Scotland. Quart J Roy Meteor Soc, 115: 581608
Huang Jian, Zhou Faxiu. 2006. The cooling and moistening eect on the formation of sea fog in the Huanghai
Sea. Acta Oceanologica Sinia, 25(2): 4962
Kalnay E, Kanamitsu M, Kistler R, et al. 1996. The
NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project. Bull Amer
Meteor. Soc., 77:437470.
Koracin D, Leipper D F, Lewis J M. 2005. Modeling sea
fog on the U.S. California coast during a hot spell
event. Geozika, 22: 5982
Lamb H. 1943. Haars or North Sea fogs on the coasts of
Great Britain. Meteorology Oce Publication M O.
504: 24
Leipper D. F. 1994. Fog on the United States West Coast:
a review. Bull. Amer Meteor Soc, 75: 229240
Lewis J, Koracin D, Rabin R, et al. 2003. Sea fog along
the California coast: Viewed in the context of transient weather systems. J Geophys Res, 108, 4457,
doi:10.1029/2002JD002833
Lewis J, Koracin D, Redmond K. 2004. Sea Fog Research in the United Kingdom and United States.
Bull Amer Meteor Soc, 82: 395408
National Weather Service. 1991. National Weather
Service Observing Handbook No.1, Marine Surface Weather Observations, Untied States Dept. of
Commerce, NOAA, National Weather Service, Sliver
Spring, Maryland
Nicholls S. 1984. The dynamics of stratocumulus: Aircraft observations and comparison with a mixed
layer model. Quart J Roy Meteor Soc, 110: 783820