Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
Keywords
Temperature; karst aquifer
Abstract
Water temperature is a non-conservative tracer in the environment. Variations in recharge temperature are damped and retarded as water moves through an aquifer due to heat exchange between water and rock. However, within karst aquifers, seasonal and short-term fluctuations in recharge temperature are often transmitted over long distances before they are fully damped. Using analytical solutions and numerical simulations, we develop relationships that describe the effect of flow path properties, flow-through time, recharge characteristics, and water and rock physical properties on the damping and retardation of thermal peaks/troughs in karst conduits. Using these relationships, one can estimate the thermal retardation and damping that would occur under given conditions with a given conduit geometry. Ultimately, these relationships can be used with thermal damping and retardation field data to estimate parameters such as conduit diameter. We also examine sets of numerical simulations where we relax some of the assumptions used to develop these relationships, testing the effects of variable diameter, variable velocity, open channels, and recharge shape on thermal damping and retardation to provide some constraints on uncertainty. Finally, we discuss a multitracer experiment that provides some field confirmation of our relationships. High temporal resolution water temperature data are required to obtain sufficient constraints on the magnitude and timing of thermal peaks and troughs in order to take full advantage of water temperature as a tracer.
Citation
Luhmann, A. J., Covington, M. D., Myre, J. M., Perne, M., Jones, S. W., Alexander, E. C., & Saar, M. O. (2015). Thermal damping and retardation in karst conduits. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 19 (1), 137-157. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-137-2015
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Comments
Principal Investigator: Matthew Covington
Acknowledgements: A. J. Luhmann was supported by a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Minnesota Graduate School. J. M. Myre was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through an Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship (EAR-1249895). M. O. Saar acknowledges the NSF under grant EAR-0941666.
In the published paper by Luhmann et al. (2015) with the title “Thermal damping and retardation in karst conduits”, the link to the supplement is missing. The link to the supplement can be found below:
The Supplement related to this article is available online at doi:10.5194/hess-19-137-2015-supplement.