Observational study of the physical and chemical characteristics of the winter radiation fog in the tropical rainforest in Xishuangbanna, China

We conducted a three-month field experiment focusing on the physical and chemical characteristics of fog in a tropical rainforest in Xishuangbanna,Southwest China,in the winter of 2019.In general,the fog would form at midnight and persist because of the increased long-wave radiative cooling combined with the high relative humidity,gentle breeze,and a relatively low aerosol number concentration in the forest;the fog would dissipate before noon due to the increasing turbulence near the surface.This diurnal cycle is typical for radiation fog.The microphysical fog properties included a relatively low number concentration of the fog droplet,large droplet size,high liquid water content,narrow droplet number-size distribution,and high supersaturation.The chemical properties showed that the fog water was slightly alkaline with low electrical conductivity,whereas the highest proportions of anions and cations therein were Cl^(−)and Ca^(2+),respectively;the chemical components were enriched in small fog droplets.In addition,we indirectly calculated the fog supersaturation according to theκ-Köhler theory.We found that condensation broadens the droplet number-size distribution at relatively low supersaturation,which is positively correlated with the fog-droplet number concentration and negatively correlated with the droplet mean-volume diameter;this affects the key microphysical processes of fog.