The Tephigram

Introduction
Meteorology is the study of the physical state of the atmosphere. The atmosphere is a heat engine
transporting energy from the warm ground to cooler locations, both vertically and horizontally. The
driving force is solar radiation. Shortwave radiation is absorbed primarily at the surface; the working
fluid is the atmosphere, which distributes heat by motion systems on all time and space scales; the
heat sink is space, to which longwave radiation escapes.
The Tephigram is one of a number of thermodynamic diagrams designed to aid in the interpretation
of the temperature and humidity structure of the atmosphere and used widely throughout the world
meteorological community. It has the property that equal areas on the diagram represent equal
amounts of energy; this enables the calculation of a wide range of atmospheric processes to be
carried out graphically. A blank tephigram is shown in figure 1; there are five principal quantities
indicated by constant value lines: pressure, temperature, potential temperature (), saturation
mixing ratio, and equivalent potential temperature (
e
) for saturated air.







Figure 1. The tephigram, with the principal quantities indicated.

Isotherms: lines
of constant
temperature (C)
Dry Adiabats:
lines of constant
potential
temperature (C)
Pseudo saturated wet adiabat: lines of
constant equivalent potential temperature for
saturated air parcels (C)
Saturation mixing ratio: lines of
constant saturation mixing ratio with
respect to a plane water surface (g kg
-1
)
Isobars: lines of
constant pressure
(mb)
The principal axes of a tephigram are temperature and potential temperature; these are straight and
perpendicular to each other, but rotated through about 45 anticlockwise so that lines of constant
temperature run from bottom left to top right on the diagram. This rotation makes lines of constant
pressure almost horizontal, though gently curving down towards bottom left, so that altitude
increases from bottom to top of the diagram. The pseudo-saturated wet adiabats (often simply
called saturated adiabats) are the most visibly curved lines on the diagram, being almost vertical at
high pressures (near the surface, or bottom of the diagram) and approaching the dry adiabats with
decreasing temperature. Saturated air cools at a lesser rate than dry air due to the release of latent
heat as water condenses out; and the rate varies due to the non-linear variation of saturation vapour
pressure with temperature. The saturated adiabats usually extend only to the -40C level; at
temperatures this low the air can hold so little water vapour that it is essentially dry; at lower
temperatures the saturated adiabat is assumed equal to the dry adiabat. Finally, lines of constant
saturation mixing ratio run from bottom left to top right.
Note that while the temperature and both dry and saturated adiabats usually have values indicated
in degrees celcius, the potential and equivalent potential temperature should strictly be Kelvin, and
all calculations involving them should use values in Kelvin.
The data plotted on a tephigram are the air temperature (T) and dew-point temperature (T
d
) plotted
against pressure. These are usually obtained from the measurements made by a radiosonde.


Figure 2. Example tephigrams
The thermodynamic properties of a parcel of air are defined by corresponding points on the
temperature and dew point curves at the same pressure. The dew point is the temperature at which
water vapour would first condense out if a parcel of air were cooled at constant pressure; this
defines the actual mixing ratio of the parcel of air (about 1.9 g kg
-1
for the example in figure 2(a)). If
the parcel of air were to be cooled by adiabatic lifting for example in flow forced to rise over hills
it would trace out a path on the tephigram along a dry adiabat until it reached the point where the
saturation mixing ratio fell to the actual mixing ratio of the parcel; at this point water would condense
out to form cloud; this is known as the lifting condensation level. If the parcel were lifted higher still,
its temperature would follow the saturated adiabat as shown in figure 2(a). Regions where the
temperature and dew point temperature are equal indicate where the radiosonde passed through
saturated air cloud (Figure 2(b)).
The stability of the atmosphere can be determined from the temperature profile on a tephigram,
along with the approximate vertical extent of any convective lifting and of consequent cloud
formation. Locally, the stability of a layer of air depends upon its density with respect to the air
T
T
d
(a) (b)
cloud
around, above, and below it; and the extent of changes in density resulting from vertical
displacements. A parcel of air that is denser than the air around it will sink downwards, a parcel that
is less dense than the air around it will rise upwards. A parcel is said to be stable if, following a
forced vertical displacement its density with respect to the ambient air at the level it has moved to is
such that it would tend to sink or rise back towards the level at which it started. It is said to be
unstable if after a small vertical displacement its density with respect to ambient was such that it
would move away from its original position. Changes in air density depend on changes in
temperature and water vapour mixing ratio, both of which are accounted for by following
temperature adiabatic temperature paths on the tephigram. A parcel of air that is warmer than the
air around it is less dense and therefore buoyant, and the layer said to be unstable; air that is cooler
than the air around it is denser and therefore negatively buoyant, and the layer is said to be stable.
The idealised examples below illustrate several different classes of stability.


Figure 3. Idealised examples of absolute static stability (a) and instability (b) of air at the surface
Figure 3(a) shows a stable temperature profile: if air at the surface (or in this case from any level) is
forced to rise, it cools dry adiabatically until it reaches its lifting condensation level, and along a
saturated adiabat with any further lifting. At all points the parcel is cooler, and hence denser, than
the ambient air at the pressure level to which it has been lifted. It is thus stable, tending to sink back
towards the level at which it started. Lifting here must be externally forced. If air from above the
surface were to be forced downwards, it would become warmer and hence less dense than the air
around it, and tend to rise back upwards. Under these conditions a parcel of displaced air, moving
back towards its level of origin may overshoot it may oscillate about its original level a number of
times, slowly losing energy. Such oscillations are called gravity waves, and often occur in where
stable air is forced up over orography. If cloud forms in the lifting part of the wave, the waves can be
clearly seen in satellite imagery.
Figure 3(b) shows a case for which the near-surface air is unstable. Adiabatic lifting results in an air
parcel warmer, thus less dense, than the surrounding air; this will be positively buoyant and will rise
upwards as a convective plume. It rises dry adiabatically until its lifting condensation level, then
along a saturated adiabat. In the case shown a strong temperature inversion exists at the top of the
boundary layer at about 600 mb; within the inversion the ambient temperature increases with
altitude. When the rising plume of air reaches the point at which its temperature equals that of the
surrounding air it is no longer positively buoyant, this is a level of neutral buoyancy. The inertia of
the plume of air will, however, cause it to overshoot the level of neutral buoyancy; it will then
become cooler than the surround air and negatively buoyant. The maximum extent of the overshoot
is reached when all the energy gained within the region of positive buoyancy has been used up in
(a) Absolute stability (b) Absolute instability
LCL
stable
LCL
stable
unstable
ascending through the region of negative buoyancy this is achieved when the two hatched areas
between the curves are equal. In the real world this maximum overshoot is rarely reached since
energy is lost by friction and in forcing upwards through the overlying air at all points during the
ascent; but it remains a useful guide to the approximate maximum height of updraughts.


Figure 4. Idealised example of conditional instability
Figure 4 shows an example of conditional instability. A parcel of air lifted adiabatically from the
surface remains cooler than its surroundings, and thus stable. If the parcel remained dry, it would
remain stable no matter how high it was lifted; however, in this case the LCL is reached at around
850mb, and the rate of cooling decreases to that of the saturated adiabat. The saturated adiabat
intersects the environmental temperature profile at about 680 mb; if the parcel of surface air is
forced to lift past this point it becomes warmer than its surroundings, and thus positively buoyant,
and will continue to lift convectively until about the 340mb level, above which it becomes negatively
buoyant again. This case is described as conditional instability, because reaching the point of
instability is conditional on forced lifting through a region on stability.











Dr. Ian Brooks
Institute for Climate & Atmospheric Science
School of Earth & Environment
University of Leeds
[email protected]
http://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~lecimb/
unstable
stable
stable
LCL
Conditional instability