Sea Fog Modelling over the Lunenburg Bay (Atlantic Canada) with GEM: Sensitivity to Microphysics Parameterizations

In this study, Environment Canada's Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) model is applied to simulate marine fog over the Lunenburg Bay (Nova Scotia, Canada) at higher resolutions during a period in June/July 2006. An extensive set of observational data from the routine weather stations and two field campaigns (FRAM and Lunenburg Bay; FRAM - Fog Remote Sensing and Modeling) are used to evaluate the model performance in simulating sea fog over this area. Also, the sensitivity of the simulated sea fog to various microphysics parameterizations in the model is comprehensively investigated, and the differences in simulated results and between the parameterization schemes are compared. As main objectives, the study will present some difference of model performance in predicting the sea fog between using different microphysics parameterizations, and suggest some improvements to the model.