A CASE STUDY OF NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF SEA FOG ON THE SOUTHERN CHINA COAST

This study uses numerical simulations to examine a case of sea fog that was observed from 20 to 22 March2011 on the southern China coast. The observation dataset includes observatory data, cloud-top temperature fromMODIS, GPS sonde, and data from the Integrated Observation Platform for Marine Meteorology （IOPMM）. Thesimulations are based on the Weather Research and Forecasting （WRF） model with four distinct parameter settings.Both the observations and simulations focus on the characteristics of the fog extent, boundary layer structure, andmeteorological elements near the air-sea interface. Our main results are as follows： （1） The extent of mesoscale sea fogcan be well simulated when the sea surface temperature has at least 0.5×0.5 horizontal resolution. （2） To accuratelymodel the vertical structure of the sea fog, particularly the surface-based inversion, vertical levels must be added in theboundary layer. （3） When these model conditions are met, the simulations faithfully reproduce the measured downwardshortwave radiation, downward longwave radiation, and surface sensible heat flux during the sea fog period.