The Equivalent Potential Temperature

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The Equivalent Potential Temperature


Physically this represents the case where a parcel of air rises (expands) pseudo-
adiabatically until all the water condenses (thus adding heat) and falls out of the parcel.
The parcel is then adiabatically compressed as a dry parcel of air to a standard pressure
of 1000 mb whereupon it will achieve its equivalent potential temperature.
We derive this as follows:
dp
= S = cp dT , ( dp
R )=
,Ls
T T p T

Recall the de nition of potential temperature


 p 
 = T po

Now we take the log of both sides (as usual)

ln () = ln(T ) , cR (ln(p) + ln(po)


p

Now let's di erentiate and take out cp to get


 = c dT , R dp
cp
d
p
 T p

Ah ha, that looks just like the rst equation above so that

cp
 = ,Ls
d
 T

Factoring further
 = , L  
d
s
 cp T

okay, we are stuck here and now unless we do a bit of math magic that is beyond your
level:
we can rewrite
2

, cLT  s
p
as
L
 
,c  d T
s
p

why? well ...


rst we assumed that L
cp is independent of temperature then we can evaluate this
terms d( Ts ) as follows:
 
s
d
T
= dT s , Ts2 dT

factoring out 1/T yields


   
d
T
s
= T1 ds , s dt
T

factoring out the s gives


   d 
d
T
s
= T1 s
s
,T dt

(note that in the textbook w = s)


Well it turns out (see problem 2.33 in Wallace and Hobbs) that
ds dt
>>
s T

so that dt
T is e ectively zero leaving that
 
d
s
T
 T1 (ds )
so we now have
d =,L d
 
s
 cp T

or
3

ln () = , L
c T
s
+ e
p

where e is the constant of integration


Exponentiating then leads to the nal form
Ls
e = exp cp T
note that as s goes to zero then e = , as expected.

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