The future is foggy for Arctic shipping

As the Arctic warms and loses sea ice, trans-Arctic shipping has increased, reducing travel time and costs for international trade. However, a new study finds that the Arctic Ocean is getting foggier as ice disappears, reducing ...

Is brain fog limited to humans?

Is brain fog a condition limited to humans? "Infectious disease and cognition in wild populations," a recently published paper in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, answers that question. In a review of the studies, it explores ...

Fog maintains water balance of epiphytes during dry season

Montane cloud forest is generally characterized by persistent, frequent incidences of fog and low cloud cover at the canopy level, which usually harbors an abundant epiphyte community. To adapt to the water deficits, epiphytes ...

Catching the fog as it rolls in for more fresh water

In the Namib desert—one of the driest places in the world—a tiny species of beetle climbs the dunes, leans its body toward the wind, and catches the only source of water it can: passing droplets of fog.

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Fog

Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated locally (such as from a nearby body of water, like a lake or the ocean, or from nearby moist ground or marshes). Fog is distinguished from mist only by its density, as expressed in the resulting decrease in visibility: Fog reduces visibility to less than 1 km (5/8 statute mile), whereas mist reduces visibility to no less than 1 km (5/8 statute mile). For aviation purposes in the UK, a visibility of less than 2 km but greater than 999 m is considered to be mist if the relative humidity is 95% or greater - below 95% haze is reported.[citation needed]

The foggiest place in the world is the Grand Banks off the island of Newfoundland, the meeting place of the cold Labrador Current from the north and the much warmer Gulf Stream from the south. Some of the foggiest land areas in the world include Argentia, Newfoundland and Labrador and Point Reyes, California, each with over 200 foggy days per year. Even in generally warmer southern Europe, thick fog and localized fog is often found in lowlands and valleys, such as the lower part of the Po Valley and the Arno and Tiber valleys in Italy or Ebro Valley in northeastern Iberia, as well as on the Swiss plateau, especially in the Seeland area, in late autumn and winter.[citation needed] Other notably foggy areas include coastal Chile (in the south), coastal Namibia, and the Severnaya Zemlya islands.

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