Validity of Global Fog‐Day Trends Indicated by the Global Surface Summary of the Day (GSOD) Data Set

Abstract

It has long been understood that fog plays an important role in the atmospheric radiation budget and contributes to many transportation related fatalities and injuries. This study utilizes >8,000 Global Surface Summary of the Day (GSOD) ground stations to investigate trends observed in fog‐days over the past 44‐years, and to examine the validity of these trends under varying observational techniques. Results show strong large‐scale regional trends in the GSOD fog‐day data, with the United States (USA) and much of Europe observing ∼20–25% and ∼3–5% decreases respectively in fog‐day occurrence. However, when comparing fog‐day counts to simultaneous visibility, it is evident that several different fog‐day data collection techniques were used throughout the timeseries in many regions. For example, many stations in the USA made data collection changes in the mid 1990s, and again in the mid 2000s. To identify the artifacts from different data collection techniques, a simple method is developed to determine which stations indeed encountered at least one false deviation to the timeseries. After applying the methodology to all GSOD stations, 1,696 stations are identified as being potentially quality long‐term fog‐day stations. Utilizing these stations, more reliable regional trends can be derived over some specific regions. Spain, Australia, and China show statistically significant decreases in fog‐day occurrence. India and Japan show increases in fog day occurrence. Further analysis shows that the driving factors of fog such as temperature and moisture have changed regionally during the last four decades and could be linked to the long‐term regional fog‐day trends.

From capture to transport: A review of engineered surfaces for fog collection

“…29 Moreover, researchers with earth and planetary sciences background may analyze this problem with a much larger scope of natural fog generation and flow. [30][31][32][33] In this review, we will limit the background introduction, article review, discussion, and outlooks only to fog collection (the latter) rather than to dew harvesting (the former), with special attention being paid to how surface engineering affects the fog collection process.…”

“…Meanwhile, fog collection may be investigated from the perspectives of surface chemistry and micro‐/nanostructures by researchers with chemistry, chemical engineering, and materials science backgrounds 29 . Moreover, researchers with earth and planetary sciences background may analyze this problem with a much larger scope of natural fog generation and flow 30–33 …”

Contributions of Local Land‒Atmosphere Coupling and Mesoscale Atmospheric Circulation to the 2013 Extreme Flash Drought and Heatwave Compound Event Over Southwest China

“…We used the daily precipitation, maximum, mean, and minimum temperature, relative humidity, sunshine duration, and wind speed at 10 m in SWC from the Global Surface Summary of the Day (GSOD) dataset between 1980 and 2020, which was obtained from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (https:// www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/metadata/landing-page/bin/iso?id=gov.noaa.ncdc:C00516; Lavigne & Liu, 2022).…”

“…The daily precipitation, maximum, mean, and minimum temperature, relative humidity, sunshine duration, and wind speed can be downloaded from the GSOD dataset (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/metadata/landing-page/bin/iso?id=gov.noaa.ncdc:C00516; Lavigne & Liu, 2022). The hourly surface sensible heat flux, surface latent heat flux, surface net solar radiation, and volumetric soil water layer can be downloaded from the ERA5‐Land hourly dataset (https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp; Muñoz Sabater, 2019, 2021).…”

Quantifying Flash Droughts Over China From 1980 to 2017

“…GSOD data set is downloaded from National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI; Lavigne & Liu, 2022). ERA5‐Land hourly data set is downloaded from the Climate Data Store (CDS; Muñoz Sabater, 2019, 2021).…”