| Title | Estimating Thermal Properties of Unsaturated Soils in the Monsoon Region Using Temperature Monitoring Data |
|---|---|
| Authors | Min-Ho Koo and Yongje Kim |
| Year | 2004 |
| Conference | Asian Geothermal Symposium |
| Keywords | soil temperature, vadose zone, heat transport, thermal properties, finite difference method, MacCormack scheme |
| Abstract | A numerical model for estimating both the water flux in the vadose zone and its thermal diffusivity is presented. The model utilizes MacCormack scheme for finite difference approximation of the partial differential equation describing the conductive and advective heat transport. To evaluate the water flux and the thermal diffusivity, the model uses a simple sequential search during the optimization process which minimizes the root-mean-square error between simulated and measured temperatures. The model is applied to 22-year time series data of soil temperatures measured at the Chuncheon synoptic station of Korea. Simulation results reveal that the developed model can accurately simulate subsurface temperature variations resulting from the redistribution of the heat due to the movement of water and it can also estimate temporal variations of the water flux and the thermal diffusivity of the shallow vadose zone. The impact of moonsoon precipitation on the thermal regime is clearly reflected in the simulated results by illustrating a linear relationship between precipitation and the water flux as well as the thermal diffusivity. |