Simulating heat transport of harmonic temperature signals in the Earth's shallow subsurface: Lower-boundary sensitivities

Details Simulating heat transport of harmonic temperature signals in the Earth's shallow subsurface: Lower-boundary sensitivities Simulating heat transport of harmonic temperature signals in the Earth's shallow subsurface: Lower-boundary sensitivities

Jul 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006georl..3314402s&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Issue 14, CiteID L14402

Physics

Geophysics

14

Biogeosciences: Modeling, Cryosphere: Permafrost (0475), Hydrology: Modeling, Mathematical Geophysics: Spectral Analysis (3205, 3280), Atmospheric Processes: Land/Atmosphere Interactions (1218, 1631, 1843)

Scientific paper

We assess the sensitivity of a subsurface thermodynamic model to the depth of its lower-boundary condition. Analytic solutions to the one-dimensional thermal diffusion equation demonstrate that boundary conditions imposed at shallow depths (2-20 m) corrupt the amplitudes and phases of propagating temperature signals. The presented solutions are for: 1) a homogeneous infinite half-space driven by a harmonic surface-temperature boundary condition, and 2) a homogeneous slab with a harmonic surface-temperature boundary condition and zero-flux lower-boundary condition. Differences between the amplitudes and phases of the two solutions range from 0 to almost 100%, depending on depth, frequency and subsurface thermophysical properties. The implications of our results are straightforward: the corruption of subsurface temperatures can affect model assessments of soil microbial activity, vegetation changes, freeze-thaw cycles, and hydrologic dynamics. It is uncertain, however, whether the reported effects will have large enough impacts on land-atmosphere fluxes of water and energy to affect atmospheric simulations.

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