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This integral is the work done by the buoyant force minus the work done against gravity, hence it's the excess energy that can become kinetic energy. CAPE for a given region is most often calculated from a thermodynamic or sounding diagram (e.g., a Skew-T log-P diagram) using air temperature and dew point data usually measured by a weather balloon.
Potential energy is the energy by virtue of an object's position relative to other objects. [6] Potential energy is often associated with restoring forces such as a spring or the force of gravity. The action of stretching a spring or lifting a mass is performed by an external force that works against the force field of the potential.
Integrating buoyant energy from the LFC to the EL gives the amount of convective available potential energy (CAPE), an estimate of the maximum energy available to convection. The depth of the FCL is expressed by the formula: FCL = Z EL - Z LFC. or FCL = P EL - P LFC
Integrating the buoyancy force over the parcel's vertical displacement yields convective available potential energy (CAPE), the joules of energy available per kilogram of potentially buoyant air. CAPE is an upper limit for an ideal undiluted parcel, and the square root of twice the CAPE is sometimes called a thermodynamic speed limit for ...
CAPE is effectively the positive buoyancy of an air parcel and is an indicator of atmospheric instability, which makes it valuable in predicting severe weather. CIN, convective inhibition, is effectively negative buoyancy, expressed B-; the opposite of convective available potential energy (CAPE), which is
If it is much greater than unity, buoyancy is dominant (in the sense that there is insufficient kinetic energy to homogenize the fluids). If the Richardson number is of order unity, then the flow is likely to be buoyancy-driven: the energy of the flow derives from the potential energy in the system originally.
Archimedes' principle allows the buoyancy of any floating object partially or fully immersed in a fluid to be calculated. The downward force on the object is simply its weight. The upward, or buoyant, force on the object is that stated by Archimedes' principle above.
Scalar potentials play a prominent role in many areas of physics and engineering. The gravity potential is the scalar potential associated with the gravity per unit mass, i.e., the acceleration due to the field, as a function of position. The gravity potential is the gravitational potential energy per unit mass.