Only meters below our feet, shallow aquifers serve as sustainable energy source and provide freshwater storage and ecological habitats. All of these aspects are crucially impacted by the thermal regime of the subsurface. Due to the limited accessibility of aquifers however, temperature measurements are scarce. Most commonly, shallow groundwater temperatures are approximated by adding an offset to annual mean surface air temperatures. Yet, the value of this offset is not well defined, often arbitrarily set, and rarely validated. Here, we propose the usage of satellite-derived land surface temperatures instead of surface air temperatures. 2 548 measurement points in 29 countries are compiled, revealing characteristic trends in the offset between shallow groundwater temperatures and land surface temperatures. Here it is shown that evapotranspiration and snow cover impact on this offset globally, through latent heat flow and insulation. Considering these two processes only, global shallow groundwater temperatures are estimated in a resolution of approximately 1 km × 1 km. When comparing these estimated groundwater temperatures with measured ones a coefficient of determination of 0.95 and a root mean square error of 1.4 K is found.
Institute for Applied Geosciences, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany;Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.;Institute of new Energy Systems, Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences, 85019 Ingolstadt, Bayern, Germany;Institute for Applied Geosciences, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76131 Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Recommended Citation:
Susanne A Benz,Peter Bayer,Philipp Blum. Global patterns of shallow groundwater temperatures[J]. Environmental Research Letters,2017-01-01,12(3)