Investigating the Impact of Coastal Topography on Marine Fog Dynamics Using Large-Eddy Simulations

This study aims to investigate the effect of coastal land on the behavior of marine fog, using Sable Island in the Atlantic Ocean as an example. Marine fog is an important meteorological phenomenon with significant implications for coastal regions, impacting visibility, transportation, and ecological processes. Employing wall-modeled large-eddy simulations, we delve into the dynamics of marine fog over Sable Island to improve our understanding of the influence of coastal topography on the behavior of fog.

We leverage LiDAR elevation data and the immersed-boundary method to accurately capture the island's land topography, ensuring high-fidelity simulations. The integration of high-resolution simulations with a wall model enables a precise representation of flow dynamics. To study fog development without requiring an extensive domain, in situ simulations with a precursor domain are performed, ensuring a sufficiently developed airflow profile with fog particles at the domain inlet.

The simulations conducted without fog reveal the formation of an internal boundary layer over the island, characterized by inhomogeneous flow due to the island's topography and water-land temperature jump. Simulations with fog are then performed to study how the formation and dissipation of fog are affected by this land effect.