The temperature a parcel would have after reversible adiabatic compression to a reference pressure. For a dry ideal gas, ; it is conserved for dry adiabatic motion.
Articles by others on the same topic
Potential temperature is a concept used primarily in thermodynamics and meteorology that represents the temperature a parcel of air (or any fluid) would attain if it were brought adiabatically (without heat exchange) to a standard reference pressure, typically 1000 hPa (hectopascals) or 1 atm (atmosphere). It provides a way to compare temperatures of air parcels that are at different pressures and is useful for understanding and predicting atmospheric processes.