Improvement of fog simulation accuracy was investigated for the fogs that occurred on the south coast of the Korean Peninsula using the WRF (3D) and PAFOG (1D) coupled model. In total, 22 fog cases were simulated and accuracy of the fog simulation was examined based on Critical Success Index, Hit Rate and False Alarm Rate. The performance of the coupled WRF-PAFOG model was better than that of the single WRF model as expected. However, much more significant improvement appeared only when the data from a 300 m meteorological tower was not only used for the initial conditions but also nudged during the simulation. Moreover, a proper prescription of soil moisture was found to be important for accurate fog simulation especially for the fog cases with prior precipitation since efficient moisture supply from the precipitation-soaked soil might have been critical for fog formation. It was also demonstrated that with such optimal coupled model setting, a coastal radiation fog event with prior precipitation could be very realistically simulated: the fog onset and dissipation times matched so well with observation. In detail, radiative cooling at the surface was critical to form a surface inversion layer as the night fell. Then the vapor flux from the precipitation-soaked surface was confined within the inversion layer to form fog. It is suggested that a proper prescription of soil moisture in the model based on observations, if readily available, could be a cost-effective method for improving operational fog forecasting, considering the fact that tall meteorological towers are a rarity in the world.

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To enhance our understanding of fog processes over complex terrain, various fog events that occurred during the International Collaborative Experiments for Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics (ICE-POP) campaign were selected. Investigation of thermodynamic, dynamic, and microphysical conditions within fog layers affected by quasi-periodic oscillation of atmospheric variables was conducted using observations from a Fog Monitor-120 (FM-120) and other in-situ meteorological instruments. A total of nine radiation fog cases that occurred in the autumn and winter seasons during the campaign over the mountainous region of Pyeongchang, Korea were selected. The wavelet analysis was used to study quasi-period oscillations of dynamic, microphysical, and thermodynamic variables. By decomposing the time series into the time-frequency space, we can determine both dominant periods and how these dominant periods change in time. Quasi-period oscillations of liquid water content (LWC), pressure, temperature, and horizontal/vertical velocity, which have periods of 15–40 min, were observed during the fog formation stages. We hypothesize that these quasi-periodic oscillations were induced by Kelvin–Helmholtz instability. The results suggest that Kelvin–Helmholtz instability events near the surface can be explained by an increase in the vertical shear of horizontal wind and by a simultaneous increase in wind speed when fog forms. In the mature stages, fluctuations of the variables did not appear near the surface anymore.

A melting layer (ML) detection algorithm for cloud radar with polarimetric capability was developed and applied to the cloud radar data collected from five different sites around the world for several years. The retrieved melting layer top height (MLH) showed a very good correspondence with the ECMWF Reanalysis 5 zero degree level data for all five sites. The ML characteristics were distinctively different for different sites, revealing climatological characteristics of ML forming clouds in different regions. Generally, ML tended to occur more frequently in summer than in winter except for a maritime site, where low stratiform clouds formed frequently in summer, the top of which might be lower than the freezing level. In contrast, at two Arctic sites, ML occurred almost exclusively in summer because it was too cold to have an ML in the other seasons. The MLH also varied significantly from site to site but generally was higher during warmer seasons. Based on MLH, two new indices, bulk temperature lapse rate (BLR) and relative depth (RD) of liquid cloud below MLH (RD) were developed, which were useful to explain the environmental characteristics of the five sites. BLR generally increased with the surface temperature at all sites except at the marine site that showed an opposite trend, where a unique synoptic pattern in winter generated high BLR in this cold season. These findings confirm that studies on thermodynamic structures using cloud radars can be broadened, taking advantage of BLR and RD information, as these indices can represent environmental thermodynamic characteristics of the clouds that have ML.