Coupling air temperature records and gravimetric data to interpret ventilation patterns in a Mediterranean karstic system (Nerja-Pintada caves, southern Spain) Liñán, Cristina Ojeda, Lucía Benavente Herrera, José del Rosal, Yolanda Vadillo, Iñaki Carrasco, Francisco Air temperature Cave airflow Gravimetry The authors thank the Nerja Cave Foundation for financing of this study, Angela Tate for revising the English text, Jochen Gschnaller for radon equipment technical advising and three anonymous reviewers who have contributed to improving this article. This work is a contribution to the Research Groups RNM-308 and RNM-126 of the Junta de Andalucía. Microclimate and geophysical studies are commonly applied to the characterization of karst systems although they are usually used separately. The main purpose of this manuscript is to show how the analysis of the data from both these research methods is a useful tool in the characterization of karst systems and we present the analysis of a specific case study: the Nerja- Pintada caves system. The joint analysis of the Nerja Cave and external air data (mainly temperatures) and the pre-existing gravimetric data of its surroundings (residual gravity anomaly map) have allowed us: 1) to postulate the existence of an unknown great cavity located near to the Nerja Cave and with direct influence in its ventilation and 2) to propose a new model of the Nerja-Pintada caves ventilation based on the changing connection between a “main cavity” system (Nerja Cave), with basically a transmissive function of airflows and an “annex cavities” sub-system, with different functioning as far as the airflow is concerned: transmissive in the case of Pintada Cave and capacitive in the case of the geophysically-located cave. 2026-01-19T10:36:54Z 2026-01-19T10:36:54Z 2020 journal article Liñán C, Ojeda L, Benavente J, Del Rosal Y, Vadillo I, Carrasco F. Coupling air temperature records and gravimetric data to interpret ventilation patterns in a Mediterranean karstic system (Nerja-Pintada caves, southern Spain). Sci Total Environ. 2020 Aug 15;730:139147. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139147 1879-1026 0048-9697 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/109871 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139147 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Elsevier