Question about Lapse Rates

[alfredo carrion]

Hello everyone.

I understand the meaning of lapse rates and their effect on storms.
My question pertains more to what causes the lapse rate to become steep more often.

Is it more of a factor of convection causing the temperature differential between the PBL air that starts to rise and the air aloft, or is it more a factor of cool air that has moved into a particular area over the warmer air located below. I am guessing that it can also be a combination of the two. Just trying to understand this particular aspect of what causes storms to fire up, or better put, one of the variables that can cause storms.

 

[Darren Lo]

Weather in the plains is heavily affected by the arid high elevations to their west. Vertical mixing of dry air in this region tends to produce a nearly dry adiabatic lapse rate through a deep layer, which is then free to advect over the lower elevations of the plains as an elevated mixed layer. This is the source of the capping inversion ("cap") which allows CAPE to build up by inhibiting deep moist convection and confining vertical mixing to a shallow surface layer. Furthermore, the EML's characteristic steep midlevel lapse rates allow convection to become explosive once it finally initiates.