Describe the Enhancement

On 6/8/21, NOAA/EMC requested that the PB2NC tool be enhanced to derive additional variations of CAPE. They are most interested in mixed-layer CAPE (representing the average characteristics of the boundary layer). Mixed-layer is the "flavor" of CAPE that was recommended to be verified in our models, via the metrics workshop.

While PB2NC does currently derive CAPE, it is surface-based CAPE and its done by calling this Fortran sub-routine:
https://github.com/dtcenter/MET/blob/main_v10.0/met/src/tools/other/pb2nc/calcape.f
That routine was taken from the NOAA/EMC VSDB verification code, but no such code exists for mixed-layer CAPE. However, it is defined in UPP.

This task is to enhance PB2NC to derive the mixed-layer variation of CAPE. Consider some of the implementation options:

• We could keep the scope limited and lift/adapt the code for deriving MLCAPE from the UPP source code. Should we keep that code in Fortran or re-write in C++?
• We could expand the scope considerably and investigate a more direct interface to the UPP derivation routines. But this would add a new dependency on UPP.

An example of a UPP module to compute CAPE can be found at:

Time Estimate

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Issues should represent approximately 1 to 3 days of work.

Sub-Issues

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Relevant Deadlines

needs to be done by 7/31/21 if possible

Funding Source

2792541

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Define Related Issue(s)

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• METplus, MET, METdatadb, METviewer, METexpress, METcalcpy, METplotpy
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Enhancement Checklist

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