brunt_vaisala_frequency¶

metpy.calc.brunt_vaisala_frequency(heights, potential_temperature, axis=0)[source]¶

Calculate the Brunt-Vaisala frequency.

This function will calculate the Brunt-Vaisala frequency as follows:

\[N = \left( \frac{g}{\theta} \frac{d\theta}{dz} \right)^\frac{1}{2}\]

This formula based off of Equations 3.75 and 3.77 in [Hobbs2006].

This function is a wrapper for brunt_vaisala_frequency_squared that filters out negative (unstable) quanties and takes the square root.

Parameters

heights (array-like) – One-dimensional profile of atmospheric height
potential_temperature (array-like) – Atmospheric potential temperature
axis (int, optional) – The axis corresponding to vertical in the potential temperature array, defaults to 0.

Returns

array-like – Brunt-Vaisala frequency.