 Convective adjustment

Convective adjustment replaces an excessively steep vertical temperature gradient by an allowed profile while respecting the selected energy budget. It is a closure for unresolved convection, not a direct simulation of individual rising parcels. A prescribed critical atmospheric lapse rate is a modeling assumption; it need not equal the dry adiabatic lapse rate.

For an original dry two-slab example, take fixed equal heat capacities and slab centers separated by $\Delta z=2\mathrm{km}$. Initially $T_1=300\mathrm{K}$ below and $T_2=280\mathrm{K}$ above. Stipulate a permitted atmospheric lapse rate ${\Gamma }_c=6\mathrm{K}\mathrm{k}{\mathrm{m}}^{-1}$. The initial difference $20\mathrm{K}$ exceeds the allowed $12\mathrm{K}$. Conservation of the sum of the two sensible energies requires $T_1^{\prime }+T_2^{\prime }=580\mathrm{K}$, while the adjusted gradient requires $T_1^{\prime }-T_2^{\prime }=12\mathrm{K}$. Hence $T_1^{\prime }=296\mathrm{K}$ and $T_2^{\prime }=284\mathrm{K}$. Heat removed below equals heat added above. Simply holding the lower slab fixed and raising the upper slab to $288\mathrm{K}$ would introduce external energy.

For unequal constant heat capacities $C_1,C_2$, the same two constraints instead giveApply this adjustment only when the original gradient exceeds the threshold. A moist adjustment also has to account for latent heat and changing composition; conservation of this dry sensible-energy expression alone is then insufficient.