SEASIDE — The future of coastal fog is anything but clear. Daniel Fernandez, a Cal State Monterey Bay professor and electrical engineer-turned-fog researcher, recently launched the Pacific Coastal Fog Research project. Dawson believes the Fog Research project’s innovation is manifold: its expanding of the fog study area, north and south, its standardization of collector equipment and its study of the variability of fog as a result of local topography. The Fog Research project will start to identify what changes in the spatial variation of fog tell us about its overall quantity — and whether it’s really in an overall slump or not. In addition to clarifying the evolution of fog on the Central Coast, Dawson thinks the Fog Research project could be used to answer questions about the impact of fog on the area’s biodiversity.