A climatology of convective available potential energy in the Mediterranean region

2017 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
CJ Lolis
2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 1097-1115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhan Su ◽  
Andrew P. Ingersoll ◽  
Andrew L. Stewart ◽  
Andrew F. Thompson

AbstractThe energetics of thermobaricity- and cabbeling-powered deep convection occurring in oceans with cold freshwater overlying warm salty water are investigated here. These quasi-two-layer profiles are widely observed in wintertime polar oceans. The key diagnostic is the ocean convective available potential energy (OCAPE), a concept introduced in a companion piece to this paper (Part I). For an isolated ocean column, OCAPE arises from thermobaricity and is the maximum potential energy (PE) that can be converted into kinetic energy (KE) under adiabatic vertical parcel rearrangements. This study explores the KE budget of convection using two-dimensional numerical simulations and analytical estimates. The authors find that OCAPE is a principal source for KE. However, the complete conversion of OCAPE to KE is inhibited by diabatic processes. Further, this study finds that diabatic processes produce three other distinct contributions to the KE budget: (i) a sink of KE due to the reduction of stratification by vertical mixing, which raises water column’s center of mass and thus acts to convert KE to PE; (ii) a source of KE due to cabbeling-induced shrinking of the water column’s volume when water masses with different temperatures are mixed, which lowers the water column’s center of mass and thus acts to convert PE into KE; and (iii) a reduced production of KE due to diabatic energy conversion of the KE convertible part of the PE to the KE inconvertible part of the PE. Under some simplifying assumptions, the authors also propose a theory to estimate the maximum depth of convection from an energetic perspective. This study provides a potential basis for improving the convection parameterization in ocean models.


2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (03) ◽  
pp. 413-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUTAPA CHAUDHURI

Severe thunderstorms are a manifestation of deep convection. Conditional instability is known to be the mechanism by which thunderstorms are formed. The energy that drives conditional instability is convective available potential energy (CAPE), which is computed with radio sonde data at each pressure level. The purpose of the present paper is to identify the pattern or shape of CAPE required for the genesis of severe thunderstorms over Kolkata (22°32′N, 88°20′E) confined within the northeastern part (20°N to 24°N latitude, 85°E to 93°E longitude) of India. The method of chaotic graph theory is adopted for this purpose. Chaotic graphs of pressure levels and CAPE are formed for thunderstorm and non-thunderstorm days. Ranks of the adjacency matrices constituted with the union of chaotic graphs of pressure levels and CAPE are computed for thunderstorm and non-thunderstorm days. The results reveal that the rank of the adjacency matrix is maximum for non-thunderstorm days and a column with all zeros occurs very quickly on severe thunderstorms days. This indicates that CAPE loses connectivity with pressure levels very early on severe thunderstorm days, showing that for the genesis of severe thunderstorms over Kolkata short, and therefore broad, CAPE is preferred.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uriya Veerendra Murali Krishna ◽  
Subrata Kumar Das ◽  
Kizhathur Narasimhan Uma ◽  
Govindan Pandithurai

Abstract. Convective available potential energy (CAPE) is a measure of the amount of energy available for convection in the atmosphere. The satellite-derived data over the ocean and land is used for a better understanding of the atmospheric stability indices. In this work, an attempt is made for the first time to estimate CAPE from high spatial and temporal resolution measurements of the INSAT-3D over the Indian region. The estimated CAPE from the INSAT-3D is comprehensively evaluated using radiosonde derived CAPE and ERA-Interim CAPE. The evaluation shows that the INSAT-3D CAPE reasonably correlated with the radiosonde derived CAPE; however, the magnitude of CAPE shows higher values. Further, the distribution of CAPE is studied for different instability conditions (different range of CAPE values) during different seasons over the Indian region. In addition, the diurnal and seasonal variability in CAPE is also investigated at different geographical locations to understand the spatial variability with respect to different terrains.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-211
Author(s):  
Osama Al-Taai ◽  
Zainab Abbood

The Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) represents the amount of energy for a sample of air. The sample departs vertically within the atmosphere and through these values the potential energy to predict the extreme weather conditions such as storms, hurricanes, lightning and thunder. Data are taken by CAPE, convective precipitation (Cp) and total precipitation (Tp) from satellites recorded by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The choice of 30 years (1989– –2018) over Iraq station between two latitudes (29.5°–37.22° N) and two longitudes (48.45°–38.45° E). Otherwise, we have studied total yearly mean of CAPE, Cp and Tp over Iraq, the total monthly mean of CAPE, Cp and Tp for the selected station, as well as the relationship between of CAPE, Cp and Tp for the selected station. The results showed that the highest total yearly mean of CAPE, Cp and Tp over Iraq was included northern stations and lowest was included central and southern stations. The highest total monthly mean of CAPE, Cp and Tp for Zakho station. The relationship between the CAPE and Cp is positive and the relationship between CAPE and Tp is positive too at five stations but Mosul station represents very high correlation while Zakho station represents the low correlation.


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