Essentially, the ground (usually at night) cools down by radiating its daytime heat into the atmosphere. As it gets cooler, it also cools the air directly touching it, to the point where the moisture in the air close to the ground starts to condense into a fog.
The only reason it’s called “radiation” fog is because of the ground radiating its heat off into the atmosphere, the same way anything hot (e.g., pizza fresh out of oven, piping hot cup of coffee) will radiate its heat into the air and cool down. Hope that helps.
I hadn't heard the term radiation fog before. I figured it probably wasn't as scary as it sounded (to me) and indeed it's not.
https://cloudatlas.wmo.int/en/radiation-fog.html
Thanks, my mind when to nuclear radiation, not heat radiation. Makes sense!
Radiation fog??
Correct.
D....don't breath this?
It has nothing to do with ionizing radiation.
https://cloudatlas.wmo.int/en/radiation-fog.html
Magic. Got it.
Essentially, the ground (usually at night) cools down by radiating its daytime heat into the atmosphere. As it gets cooler, it also cools the air directly touching it, to the point where the moisture in the air close to the ground starts to condense into a fog.
The only reason it’s called “radiation” fog is because of the ground radiating its heat off into the atmosphere, the same way anything hot (e.g., pizza fresh out of oven, piping hot cup of coffee) will radiate its heat into the air and cool down. Hope that helps.