soil_thermodynamics: Soil thermodynamic functions

In medfate: Mediterranean Forest Simulation

Soil thermodynamic functions

Description

Functions soil_thermalConductivity and soil_thermalCapacity calculate thermal conductivity and thermal capacity for each soil layer, given its texture and water content. Functions soil_temperatureGradient and soil_temperatureChange are used to calculate soil temperature gradients (in ºC/m) and temporal temperature change (in ºC/s) given soil layer texture and water content (and possibly including heat flux from above).

Usage

soil_thermalCapacity(soil, model = "SX")

soil_thermalConductivity(soil, model = "SX")

soil_temperatureGradient(widths, Temp)

soil_temperatureChange(
  widths,
  Temp,
  sand,
  clay,
  W,
  Theta_SAT,
  Theta_FC,
  Gdown,
  tstep
)

Arguments

soil	Soil object (returned by function soil).
model	Either 'SX' or 'VG' for Saxton's or Van Genuchten's pedotransfer models.
widths	Width of soil layers (in mm).
Temp	Temperature (in ºC) for each soil layer.
sand	Percentage of sand (in percent weight) for each layer.
clay	Percentage of clay (in percent weight) for each layer.
W	Soil moisture (in percent of field capacity) for each layer.
Theta_SAT	Relative water content (in percent volume) at saturation for each layer.
Theta_FC	Relative water content (in percent volume) at field capacity for each layer.
Gdown	Downward heat flux from canopy to soil (in W·m-2).
tstep	Time step (interval) in seconds.

Value

Function soil_thermalConductivity returns a vector with values of thermal conductivity (W/m/ºK) for each soil layer.

Function soil_thermalCapacity returns a vector with values of heat storage capacity (J/m3/ºK) for each soil layer.

Function soil_temperatureGradient returns a vector with values of temperature gradient between consecutive soil layers.

Function soil_temperatureChange returns a vector with values of instantaneous temperature change (ºC/s) for each soil layer.

Author(s)

Miquel De Cáceres Ainsa, CREAF

References

Cox, P.M., Betts, R.A., Bunton, C.B., Essery, R.L.H., Rowntree, P.R., and Smith, J. 1999. The impact of new land surface physics on the GCM simulation of climate and climate sensitivity. Climate Dynamics 15: 183–203.

Dharssi, I., Vidale, P.L., Verhoef, A., MacPherson, B., Jones, C., and Best, M. 2009. New soil physical properties implemented in the Unified Model at PS18. 9–12.

See Also

soil

Examples

#Define soil and complete parameters
examplesoil = soil(defaultSoilParams(4))

soil_thermalConductivity(examplesoil)
soil_thermalCapacity(examplesoil)

#Values change when altering water content (drier layers have lower conductivity and capacity)
examplesoil$W = c(0.1, 0.4, 0.7, 1.0)
soil_thermalConductivity(examplesoil)
soil_thermalCapacity(examplesoil)

medfate documentation built on April 4, 2025, 2:01 a.m.