Ask if value CAPE and most unstable CAPE are Same

Question

Metpy admin, I curious what causes the value of CAPE and most unstable CAPE are same? Latest, I try to count CAPE and MCAPE use ERA5 data.

Best regards

Answer 1

Assuming by "CAPE" you mean surface-based CAPE (if you're talking the MetPy functions, cape_cin needs to be passed explicitly a parcel profile to use), these two values will be the same when the "most unstable" parcel is the surface parcel.