Investigating simplified modeling choices for numerical simulation of CO2 storage with thermal effects

Our results suggest that for several practical cases the thermal front can be reasonably well modeled using a vertically integrated flow model with constant vertical temperature. The results also suggest that a simplified overburden representation may give a reasonable approximation, particularly for scenarios with low thermal bleed. We point out that the impact of a simplified overburden representation can be very similar to the use of linear heat transfer coefficients. On the other hand, while models that completely neglect thermal bleed may perform acceptably in some low-bleed settings, they often lead to very large errors.