Sky Islands Climate

Panoramic illustrated banner of the Sky Islands Climate site: a saguaro-dotted desert foreground rising through hazy mid-elevation ranges to twin forested peaks, with the site title and tagline overlaid

Encyclopedia

C E H N P R V
Cl Co

  • Climate history of the Southwestern United States

    The climate history of the Southwestern United States extends back thousands of years, far beyond the region’s written historical record, which begins only a few hundred years ago with the earliest Spanish expeditions into the region in the late 1530s and 1540s (American Southwest Virtual Museum, 2019). Human societies have inhabited the region for thousands…

  • Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE)

    CAPE is a measure, in joules per kilogram (J/kg), of the energy available to a rising air parcel once it becomes positively buoyant relative to its surroundings. It is the primary thermodynamic index used to estimate how strong thunderstorm updrafts could become on a given day. Forecasters treat it as a standard input to every…

  • Convective Inhibition (CIN)

    CIN (also written CINH) is a measure, in joules per kilogram (J/kg), of the energy an air parcel must expend to overcome a stable layer in the atmosphere before it can rise freely. That stable layer is sometimes called a “cap.” Where CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) measures the energy available once convection starts, CIN…