Comment on “Influence of capillarity on a simple harmonic oscillating water table: Sand column experiments and modeling” by Nick Cartwright et al.

Abstract

[1] Cartwright et al. [2005] and, in a preceding paper, Nielsen and Perrochet [2000] conducted an investigation to assess the effects of an oscillating water table on the effective porosity. Both studies present results from a thorough laboratory experiment and numerical simulations. We wish to comment on some of the findings and conclusions of Cartwright et al. [2005] with regard to the effect of capillarity and the response at very high and very low oscillation frequencies. We also present some results from a simple numerical solution to a nonhysteretic one-dimensional Richards equation model and compare these to the original data and the modeling results presented by Cartwright et al. [2005].