Investigating Contribution Of Fog To Air Traffic Delay At Jomo Kenyatta International Airport

Abstract

Information on fog occurrence or dissipation is very useful for aircraft maneuvers. This is usually very difficult to determine either due to the absence of instruments to sense or the complexity involved in its forecasting. Most of the studies that have been carried out are on dynamics of fog formation, the various instruments that can be used to forecast fog or the fog-layer top. This study seeks to relate fog occurrence to improved profitability. The total economic losses associated with the impact of the presence of fog on various transportation sectors such as aviation, marine and land transportation can be comparable to those of tornadoes or, in some cases, winter storms and hurricanes. During winter fog can create icing on aircraft wings and at its worst crash landing. Dense sea fog cause collision of boats, SMOG affects human health negatively therefore information on fog occurrence/formation is very crucial as it can result to fatality or serious economic losses. The number of articles including the word „„fog‟‟ in Journals of American Meteorological Society alone was found to be about 4700, indicating that there is substantial interest in this subject. In spite of this extensive body of work, our ability to accurately forecast/nowcast fog remains limited due to our incomplete understanding of the fog processes over various time and space scales( Gultepe et al,2007).