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Potential temperature is computed as in Chapter 3 of Reference 1, i.e. by dividing the in-situ temperature by the ratio of actual pressure to reference pressure, raised to the power Rd/Cp. (The computation is done in Absolute Temperature, with conversions to and from Celcius being done with TK2TC() and TC2TK(), respectively.) See also theta2T(), which is the inverse of T2theta().

Usage

T2theta(temperature, pressure, Rd = 287.04, Cp = 1005.7)

Arguments

temperature

numeric value indicating in-situ temperature in degrees C.

pressure

numeric value indicating pressure in mbar (equivalently, in hPa).

Rd, Cp

dry-air gas constant and mass-specific heat capacity, with the default values as in Reference 2.

Value

T2theta returns potential temperature, in degrees Celcius.

References

  1. Wallace, John M., and Peter Victor Hobbs. Atmospheric Science: An Introductory Survey. 2nd ed. International Geophysics Series, volume 92. Amsterdam; Boston: Elsevier Academic Press, 2006.

  2. https://github.com/cwebster2/pyMeteo

Author

Dan Kelley, with the default values for Rd and Cp taken from Reference 1.