Abstract
In this study, we measured the droplet size distribution (DSD) and visibility of sea fog using a fog droplet spectrometer and visibility meter, respectively, during the July 23–August 3 and August 22–September 13 periods of the 2016 Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition. We calculated the visibility using the Mie theory and the DSD data and then compared the calculated with the observed visibility. The comparison shows that the deviations in the calculated visibility caused by DSD data sampling errors cannot be ignored. During navigation, wind and ship speeds tended to push or pull the sampled air and cause turbulence pulsation, which influenced the sampling of the fog droplet spectrometer. This influence is weak when the liquid water content (LWC) is high but becomes stronger as the LWC decreases. Taking the sailing speed and heading into consideration, the wind speed component parallel and perpendicular to the air inlet of the fog droplet spectrometer exhibit different laws in the deviation. By performing a fitting analysis of the calculated and observed visibilities under different wind speeds and wind directions, here, we present two sets of correction coefficients for the two wind-speed components and a method for correcting the calculated visibility. This correction method shows excellent results.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41330960), the National Major Science Project of China for Global Change Research (No. 2015CB953900), and the Major State Basic Research Development Program (No. 2016YFC1402702).
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Liu, Y., Zhao, J. A Correction Algorithm for Atmospheric Visibility Based on Fog Droplet Size Data Obtained on a Moving Ship During 2016 Arctic Cruise. J. Ocean Univ. China 18, 596–604 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-019-3885-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-019-3885-7