![]() The frequency of marine coastal fog events and the extent of inland penetration depend on both simultaneous and sequential processes across an extremely broad range of the planet’s spatial and temporal scales. To help coastal communities, many climate scientists are taking a close look at fog with the aim of developing models of future fog patterns. These questions, and others like them, are not purely academic: Changes in fog frequency have implications for a wide range of sectors, including coastal ecology, agriculture, urban energy and water consumption, and public health. How representative is this finding of worldwide changes in fog patterns that may come? Can long-term cycles in ocean temperature such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation explain the centennial trend? For example, a recent study of coastal fog in the eastern Pacific, which relied on long-term airport records, indicated that the occurrence of summertime fog has declined by 33% over the course of the 20th century. One pressing question involves how global climate change will influence fog and how fog may be affected by rising surface temperatures and secondary effects such as coastal wind strength, inland marine layer intrusion, and increased evaporation. However, empirical data or physical models capable of characterizing fog as a climatological phenomenon are surprisingly sparse. They know the importance of the summertime shade and moisture provided by the onshore transport of fog arriving as a wall of marine cloud. To climate scientists, fog’s physical opacity symbolizes how much remains to be discovered about it. Residents get used to the Sun “rising” in midday after fog dissipates. Airline passengers delayed by fog impatiently wait for the skies to clear. Tourists visiting beaches bemoan the cool and damp conditions that create a striking contrast to the sunny warm conditions typically found less than a few kilometers inland. Film directors seek out fog to shroud scenes in eerie gloominess. Is it a season? Is it three months?" she says.Coastal marine fog, a characteristic feature of climates generated at the eastern boundaries of ocean basins worldwide, evokes different feelings in those who experience it (see Figure 1).Īuthors and poets use fog to represent mystery, bleakness, and confusion. "It depends how long the fogs are available for. And it, too, is affected by climate change. There is one problem, though: Fog isn't necessarily a constant. The carbon footprint is essentially nothing. In the last decade or so, fog harvesting projects have sprouted up in Morocco, Chile, Yemen, Ethiopia and across Southeast Asia, especially near coasts where water-drenched air is moved by the wind.Īnd McDonnell points out – there's no energy involved. But we're learning to harness it for some of the uses that we as humans need." They grow little hair, little outgrowths, that as the moist air comes, it traps it," McDonnell says. "Of course, this is just mimicking nature. Scientists and universities around the world, including Kenya, are trying to find the best material and structure for nets, and working to improve the method. Most fog harvesting operations around the world use big mesh nets to trap the fog, which condenses into water and drains into collection buckets. As children they remember using banana leaves and bowls to do the same collection before the switch to plastic. ![]() Nyuroka and Murungi talk with neighbors about their memories of older ways of harvesting water from the forest. Around the world, climate change is worsening drought conditions and limiting water access, leaving people searching for surprising sources, like fog and dew.Īnd while some of the methods for fog harvesting, like this one in the mountains, have been around for generations, scientists and entrepreneurs have been innovating new ways, including technology that can pull water from the air in practically any environment. Rivers are drying up and the rainy season, once certain, has repeatedly failed to produce significant rainfall. The country is in the midst of its worst drought in decades. Then when the night brings cooler temperatures, that moisture condenses, forming a fog of water droplets that Murungi and his wife collect.įinding water in many parts of Kenya is a struggle. When the ground heats up during the day, its moisture evaporates into the air. ![]() ![]() ![]() But the sun - strong at the equator - will soon warm the area. Murungi's wearing a wool hat and a maroon fleece, long pants and tall rubber boots. Water that condenses on the tree will flow down onto the plastic sheet and into a jerrycan for him to take home. Murungi tacks a piece of plastic to a tree using thorns. ![]()
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