A GEMPAK script for estimating diabatic heating

A GEMPAK script has been developed to estimate diabatic heat release using an expression developed by other investigators. This script was developed with numerical model output in mind, so the adjustment factor typically applied to the vertically integrated mass flux is neglected. When diabatic heating was estimated with this method using observed data, the adjustment factor was introduced to: 1) account for rawinsonde errors in upper level winds, and 2) offset truncation errors in their finite difference scheme. However, model output possesses an internal mass-momentum consistency not always present in observed data. Moreover, concerns over aliasing certain scales of motion out of observed data during objective analysis are not exactly the same with model output. With rawinsonde data, all scales of motion affect the data values; numerical models, by design, resolve no wave smaller than 2 Delta x. The script will be exhibited as well as the results of studies employing diabatic heating estimates from the script.