ecape
ecape is a simple module that contains an entraining CAPE, or ECAPE, calculation described by Peters et al. [PCM+23]. Additionally, Peters [Pet23] -provided MatLab scripts serve as a reference and test verification data. The module leans heavily on MetPy [May et al. [MAM+23]] for meteorological calculations.
Package published via Hatch.
Installation & Use
To use ecape, install it with pip:
pip install ecape
See the example page.
from ecape.calc import calc_ecape
...
ecape = calc_ecape(height, pressure, temperature, specific_humidity, u_wind, v_wind)
Source
Contact
Robert Capella 🌪️
Questions, comments, and feedback are certainly welcome. This project is a personal exercise in learning how to publish packages to Github & PyPI, so excuse the excessive documentation for one function 😄.
Future Work
add support for other water content variables
if useful, incorporate into MetPy
provide cli .nc, .csv, & aws support
Disclaimer
There is a ~10% difference in ECAPE between calc_ecape and Peters’ published matlab scripts. This is primarily due to a difference in calculated CAPE. The tests describe other sources of error (~1%).
- Since:
the methods here are within ~1% of Peters’ calculations when CAPE is equivalent in the sample data
Peters et. al. specifically mention MetPy for determining CAPE
MetPy is a reliable, open-source, and frequently used meteorological calculation package
MetPy’s CAPE calculations were chosen for ease of readability and implementation.
If users prefer their own CAPE calculations, use the manual_cape parameter to override this decision!
References
Ryan M. May, Sean C. Arms, Patrick Marsh, Eric Bruning, John R. Leeman, Kevin Goebbert, Jonathan E. Thielen, Zachary S Bruick, and M. Drew. Camron. Metpy: a Python package for meteorological data. 2023. URL: Unidata/MetPy, doi:10.5065/D6WW7G29.
John Peters. ECAPE scripts. 2 2023. URL: https://figshare.com/articles/software/ECAPE_scripts/21859818, doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.21859818.v4.
John M. Peters, Daniel R. Chavas, Hugh Morrison, Chun-Yian Su, and Brice E. Coffer. An analytic formula for entraining cape in mid-latitude storm environments. 2023. arXiv:2301.04712.