Articles | Volume 25, issue 18
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-11157-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.Adiabatic and radiative cooling are both important causes of aerosol activation in simulated fog events in Europe
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- Final revised paper (published on 24 Sep 2025)
- Supplement to the final revised paper
- Preprint (discussion started on 16 Dec 2024)
- Supplement to the preprint
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor
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- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-3397', Anonymous Referee #3, 31 Dec 2024
- RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-3397', Anonymous Referee #1, 06 Jan 2025
- RC3: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-3397', Anonymous Referee #2, 25 Feb 2025
- AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-3397', Pratapaditya Ghosh, 16 Jun 2025
Peer review completion
AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload
AR by Pratapaditya Ghosh on behalf of the Authors (16 Jun 2025)
Author's response
Author's tracked changes
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ED: Publish as is (18 Jun 2025) by Pablo Saide

AR by Pratapaditya Ghosh on behalf of the Authors (23 Jun 2025)
Manuscript
This paper is the 2nd in a pair of papers aimed at exploring the factors modulating the concentration of fog droplets (Nd) in an NWP model with prognostic aerosol microphysics. While the 1st paper focused on aerosol activation leading to fog formation via adiabatic cooling, this manuscript examined the role of radiative cooling and several additional factors which can potentially modify supersaturation and aerosol activation. They found some sensitivity to all processes that were tested, with radiative cooling sometimes being greater than adiabatic cooling. Deposition processes were also found to be important. In addition to fog droplet concentration, the authors compared liquid water content, liquid water path, and fog top height from the model to observations from the LANFEX and ParisFog field campaigns.
It is known that fog is a challenging forecast problem. The observations used here have a large degree of variability, and it is difficult to conclude that a particular model configuration performs better for the majority of cases. Nevertheless, the relative behavior of the experiments is informative and the publication of this study adds to the understanding of the model processes required to accurately simulate fog. Recommendation: Accept with minor revisions.
General Comments/Questions:
It is not surprising that radiative cooling is important in these simulations, as the fog type simulated is “radiation fog”. It also seems unsurprising that the AD-RAD experiments overpredicts Nd, if the code used for AD was already modified to give improved values of Nd without radiative cooling. Why not add the radiative cooling to Def-ARG?
The sensitivity of the various cloud properties to changes in the various cooling sources is shown, but is there is any significant change in the spatial coverage of the fog between experiments?
The radiative effects include interaction with both the land surface and the fog, correct? It looks like your analyses are made only during foggy periods, and the droplet activation due to radiative cooling is relatively constant with time in most cases. I was curious if you were able to detect an increase in radiative effects as the fog became optically thicker? – or perhaps then the surface radiative effects would decrease?
Specific Comments:
Line 107: “We use observations from including…” There seems to be something missing between “from” and “including”?
Top of page 10: Should the 2nd equation be subtracting the 2nd term rather than adding? If not, please clarify how “New Nd” can decrease.
How is cloud fraction computed?
Fig. 14: Are there any other characteristics that would help categorize when radiative cooling is dominant?
Line 561: Add a space in “paperfocused”.