Is advective heat transport significant at the Dead Sea basin?

Abstract

AbstractAn understanding of heat flux is a necessary component in reconstructing tectonic, seismic, and hydrologic models of the Dead Sea basin. Heat may be transferred by both conduction and advection by groundwater. Although the conductive heat flux in Israel has been extensively measured to be approximately 40 mW m−2, there is still a debate about the total heat flux. Recently, the discharge of hot springs along the western Dead Sea shore has been determined to be 107 m3 year−1. Simple calculations show that the heat discharged by groundwater at these hot springs is of the same order of magnitude as the measured conductive heat flux in deep boreholes. Therefore the total heat flux could be significantly higher than 40 mW m−2. However, results of numerical modeling show that the current hot‐spring heat discharge is two orders of magnitude greater than that predicted for steady‐state conditions and can be explained by the rapid recession of the Dead Sea.