RT Journal Article
T1 Efecto en la temperatura de las visitas turísticas en la Cueva del Águila, Ávila. Valoración de la viabilidad de la cueva para el estudio térmico de su dinámica natural
T1 Temperature effect caused by visitors in Eagle Cave, Ávila. Suitableness of the cave to monitor natural conditions
A1 Domínguez Villar, David
A1 Carrasco González, Rosa María
A1 Pedraza Gilsanz, Javier
A1 Fairchild, Ian J.
A1 Baker, Andy
AB The present study focuses on the importance of visitors in Eagle Cave temperature, a tourist cavern inÁvila, central Spain. Cave air temperature was measured during a year and natural and anthropogenicthermal effects were identified. Eagle Cave has a rather stable temperature around 15.6ºC with an annualcycle which amplitude is <0.4ºC. Recorded seasonality in the cave is related to external temperatures dueto thermal conduction through the bedrock, with an expected delay of several years for the external signalto be transferred into the cave. The visitors cause increases in diurnal temperature up to 0.15ºC, althoughthermal anomalies are normally recovered overnight. During vacation periods, where consecutive dayswith large number of visitors increases, thermal anomalies are prolonged for some days or weeks, withamplitudes <0.1ºC. Although visitors have a daily impact on the cave temperature, the effect does notcause long term change in Eagle Cave temperature. The reason for this thermal mitigation is related to thehigh humidity of the environment, which causes the energy supplied by tourists to be partially transferredas latent heat via evaporation and condensation processes. The current condensation processes areinsufficient to cause any discernible condensation corrosion that could be damaging recent stalagmites
PB Universidad de Huelva
YR 2010
FD 2010
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/7465
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/7465
LA spa
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 13 jul 2026