On the Energetics of Vertical Lability (2)

Abstract

Consider a vertical air column of depth h. The pressure is p₀ at the ground and p_n, at the top. The lower part from p₀ to p_i (p_n<pi<p₀) is saturated and ascends wet-adiabatically, while the upper part from p_i to p_n descends dry-adiabatically. A constant lapse-rate α is assumed, and at the boundary p_i there exists no discontinuity of temperature, therefore the energy releasable by such an overturning, if any, is nothing but the moist-labile (feuchtlabile) energy.
The energy equation has been derived and the result of numerical evaluation is as follows:
It is seen here that the moist-labile energy is generally very small in the atmosphere of conditional instability.