Area of research
Atmospheric Science · Earth-Surface Processes
Research interest
Research topics from publications: Speleothem trace element signatures: A hydrologic geochemical study of modern cave dripwaters and farmed calcite; A minimal model for predicting ventilation rates of subterranean caves. Representative work: The ventilation of carbon dioxide within subterranean caves regulates the growth of speleothems --- mineral deposits found in caves that provide important clues about past climate. While previous studies have used internal temperature measurements to predict ventilation rates, such data would not be available for the task of climate reconstruction. Here, we develop a parsimonious model to predict ventilation rates from knowledge of outside temperatures and the cave's physical dimensions only. In the model, ventilation arises from buoyancy-driven flows created in passageways that connect to the outside. A few key simplifications leads to a system amenable to perturbation analysis, resulting i