brunt_vaisala_frequency

metpy.calc.brunt_vaisala_frequency(height, potential_temperature, vertical_dim=0)

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) quantities and takes the square root.

Parameters
Returns

pint.Quantity or xarray.DataArray – Brunt-Vaisala frequency. Given as pint.Quantity, unless both height and potential_temperature arguments are given as xarray.DataArray, in which case will be xarray.DataArray.

Changed in version 1.0: Renamed heights, axis parameters to height, vertical_dim