An experimental simulation of a coastal fog-stratus case using COAMPS(tm) model

This paper presents an experimental simulation of a summer season marine fog-stratus case along the west coast of California using the US Navy COAMPS(tm) model. The purpose is to show the potential usefulness of mesoscale models in forecasting this type of marine boundary weather phenomenon. The role of data assimilation and the impacts of solar radiation, microphysics, and vertical resolution in improving the forecasts are examined. The model capability in forecasting the burn-off process over the San Francisco Bay area is also tested with very high horizontal resolution (2-km grid size) using the model's one-way nesting technique. The model demonstrates promising capacity in this case to replicate the temporal and spatial cloud coverage over the San Francisco Bay and surrounding area, shown in satellite imagery, despite a 2-h lag to complete clearing over the bay. This study also suggests that a better microphysics parameterization and proper representation of microphysics in the solar radiation scheme are both important for COAMPS(tm) to produce more realistic simulations and to improve the burn-off forecast. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.