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Talk:Convective condensation level

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Bad formula

[edit]

The text currently says

Can be roughly approximated by taking the spread between the surface temperature and dewpoint and dividing by 4.4 (if temperatures are in °F) or 2.5 (if temperatures are in °C), then multiplying the result by 1000.

As far as I can tell, this is complete nonsense. There is no formula, can never be a formula, to determine the convective condensation level because it is determined by plotting 100%RH verses altitude and locating the intersection with the actual measured temperature sounding.

If it is assumed (and this is a big assumption) that the lapse rate is 6.5 K/km (the ELR), then the CCL can be found by

Td - 1.8 z = T - 6.5 z
z(6.5 - 1.8) = T - Td
z = (T - Td)/4.7

Which is quite close to the original (August 2011) formula which divided by 4.4 for degrees Celsius.

The April 2014 edit claims

'Correction to cloud-base calculation copied from Lifting condensation level article'

However, since I am not able to find anything like that in the referenced page, and because the values are absolute nonsense, I think that edit should be considered to be vandalism. Robert - Northern VA (talk) 07:21, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]