break down near Tropical Cyclones because CAPE assumes that liquid water is lost instantaneously during condensation. This process is thus irreversible upon adiabatic descent. This process is not realistic for Tropical Cyclones (TC for short). To make the process more realistic for Tropical Cyclones is to use Reversible CAPE (RCAPE for short). RCAPE assumes the opposite extreme to the standard convention of CAPE and is that no liquid water will be lost during the process. This new process gives parcels a greater density related to water loading. RCAPE is calculated using the same formula as CAPE, the difference in the formula being in the virtual temperature. In this new formulation, we replace the parcel saturation mixing ratio (which leads to the condensation and vanishing of liquid water) with the parcel water content. This slight change can drastically change the values we get through the integration. RCAPE does have some limitations, one of which is that RCAPE assumes no evaporation keeping consistent for the use within a TC but should be used sparingly elsewhere. Another limitation of both CAPE and RCAPE is that currently, both systems do not consider entrainment. See also Atmospheric thermodynamics Lifted index Maximum potential intensity References Further reading Barry, R.G. and Chorley, R.J. Atmosphere, weather and climate (7th ed) Routledge 1998 p. 80-81 External links Map of current global CAPE Severe weather and convection Atmospheric thermodynamics Fluid dynamics