Development and Validation of the Coupled System of Unified Model (UM) and PArameterized FOG (PAFOG)

As an attempt to improve fog predictability at Incheon International Airport (IIA) we couple the 3D weather forecasting model currently operational in Korea Meteorological Administration (regional Unified Model, UM_RE) with a 1D turbulence model (PAFOG). The coupling is done by extracting the meteorological data from the 3D model and properly inserting them in the PAFOG model as initial conditions and external forcing. The initial conditions include surface temperature, 2 m temperature and dew point temperature, geostrophic wind at 850 hPa and vertical profiles of temperature and dew point temperature. Moisture and temperature advections are included as external forcing and updated every hr. To validate the performance of the coupled system, simulation results of the coupled system are compared to those of the 3D model alone for the 22 sea fog cases observed over the Yellow Sea. Three statistical indices, i.e., Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), linear correlation coefficient (R) and Critical Success Index (CSI), are examined, and they all indicate that the coupled system performs better than the 3D model alone. These are certainly promising results but more improvement is required before the coupled system can actually be used as an operational fog forecasting model. For the RMSE, R, and CSI values for the coupled system are still not good enough for operational fog forecast.