In connection to a project with the ECMWF, this year at the ESSL Testbed, different approaches for CAPE calculations are offered in the testbed data display:
![](https://www.essl.org/testbed/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/20190606-ECMWF-CAPE-testing.png)
It means that in addition to the standard CAPE – which is provided by ECMWF operationally – we try to compare with the usability of other approaches, namely with a mixed layer CAPE of the lowest 50 or 100 hPa alternatively, the surface parcel CAPE and the most unstable CAPE for situations of elevated CAPE, which does not show up in calculations that use close-to-surface parcels. In addition a combined plot is offered that displays both mixed layer and most unstable CAPE in combined colour shaded and colour contour plot.
![](https://www.essl.org/testbed/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/20190606-ECMWF-CAPE-testing-combination-plot-ML-MU-1024x552.png)