Examination of microphysical relationships and corresponding microphysical processes in warm fogs

Abstract

In this paper, the microphysical relationships of 8 dense fog events collected from a comprehensive fog observation campaign carried out at Pancheng (32.2°N, 118.7°E) in the Nanjing area, China in the winter of 2007 are investigated. Positive correlations are found among key microphysical properties (cloud droplet number concentration, droplet size, spectral standard deviation, and liquid water content) in each case, suggesting that the dominant processes in these fog events are likely droplet nucleation with subsequent condensational growth and/or droplet deactivation via complete evaporation of some droplets. The abrupt broadening of the fog droplet spectra indicates the occurrence of the collision-coalescence processes as well, although not dominating. The combined effects of the dominant processes and collision-coalescence on microphysical relationships are further analyzed by dividing the dataset according to visibility or autoconversion threshold in each case. The result shows that the specific relationships of number concentration to volume-mean radius and spectral standard deviation depend on the competition between the compensation of small droplets due to nucleation-condensation and the loss of small droplets due to collision-coalescence. Generally, positive correlations are found for different visibility or autoconversion threshold ranges in most cases, although negative correlations sometimes appear with lower visibility or larger autoconversion threshold. Therefore, the compensation of small droplets is generally stronger than the loss, which is likely related to the sufficient fog condensation nuclei in this polluted area.