thickness_hydrostatic

metpy.calc.thickness_hydrostatic(pressure, temperature, **kwargs)[source]

Calculate the thickness of a layer via the hypsometric equation.

This thickness calculation uses the pressure and temperature profiles (and optionally mixing ratio) via the hypsometric equation with virtual temperature adjustment

\[Z_2 - Z_1 = -\frac{R_d}{g} \int_{p_1}^{p_2} T_v d\ln p,\]

which is based off of Equation 3.24 in [Hobbs2006].

This assumes a hydrostatic atmosphere.

Layer bottom and depth specified in pressure.

Parameters:
  • pressure (pint.Quantity) – Atmospheric pressure profile
  • temperature (pint.Quantity) – Atmospheric temperature profile
  • mixing (pint.Quantity, optional) – Profile of dimensionless mass mixing ratio. If none is given, virtual temperature is simply set to be the given temperature.
  • molecular_weight_ratio (pint.Quantity or float, optional) – The ratio of the molecular weight of the constituent gas to that assumed for air. Defaults to the ratio for water vapor to dry air. (\(\epsilon\approx0.622\)).
  • bottom (pint.Quantity, optional) – The bottom of the layer in pressure. Defaults to the first observation.
  • depth (pint.Quantity, optional) – The depth of the layer in hPa. Defaults to the full profile if bottom is not given, and 100 hPa if bottom is given.
Returns:

pint.Quantity – The thickness of the layer in meters.

See also

thickness_hydrostatic_from_relative_humidity(), pressure_to_height_std(), virtual_temperature()