Laboratory for
Climatology and Remote Sensing

Abstract:

Fog and low stratus clouds (FLS) form as a result of complex interactions of multiple factors in the atmosphere and at the land surface and impact both the anthropogenic and natural environments. Here, we analyze the role of synoptic conditions and aerosol loading on FLS occurrence and persistence in the Po valley in northern Italy. By applying k‐means clustering to reanalysis data, we find that FLS formation in the Po valley is either based on radiative processes or moisture advection from the Mediterranean sea. Satellite‐based data on FLS persistence shows longer persistence of radiatively formed FLS events, likely due to air mass stagnation and a temperature inversion. Ground‐based aerosol optical depth observations further reveal that FLS event duration is significantly higher under high aerosol loading. The results underline the combined effect of topography, moisture advection and aerosol loading on the FLS life cycle in the Po valley.

Abstract:

Fast Fog and Low Stratus Detection (FFLSD) is a processing tool enabling detection of fog and low stratus (FLS) on very large time-series of Meteosat Second Generation data. We combine approaches for FLS detection by day and night into one homogeneous and efficient processing tool. The main unification improvements are: (1) consistent spatial tiling instead of various pixel clustering approaches, (2) uniform generation of sun and viewing angle dependent thresholds for individual tiles, (3) flexible study areas instead of area dependence, (4) parallel raster processing using the Open Computing Language (OpenCL), (5) and efficient algorithms for complex processing steps like histogram generation and analysis. As a result, users are enabled to generate products like long-term FLS climatologies with reasonable resources and short processing times. FFLSD is available as open source and allows reuse and extensions for other tasks.