Characteristics of haze, mist and fog

An aerosol and fog data set from a field experiment in November 1994 at San Pietro Capofiume, Northern Italy was analysed. With objective criteria developed from visibility measurements average aerosol characteristics in the dry and wet state were calculated for haze, mist and fog conditions which can be seen as representative for continental air masses in an industrialised region. Dry particle size distributions between three and 800 nm and ambient size distributions between and 50 μm were measured with a system consisting of the three size-segregating particle sensors differential mobility particle sizer, droplet aerosol analyser and FSSP. Systematic changes in particle properties were found for the transition from haze to fog that can be used to derive internally consistent optical aerosol properties. The analysis of the data set demonstrates that atmospheric sensors which have been developed for cloud and fog studies yield useful data for haze conditions.