PNNL

Abstract

We develop a theory for residence times and mean ages for nonautonomous compartmental systems. Using the McKendrick–von F ¨orster equation, we show that the mean ages of mass in a compartmental system satisfy a linear nonautonomous ordinary differential equation that is exponentially stable. We then define a nonautonomous version of residence time as the mean age of mass leaving the compartmental system at a particular time and show that our nonautonomous theory is consistent with the autonomous case. We apply these results to study a nine-dimensional nonautonomous compartmental system modeling the carbon cycle, which is a simplified version of the Carnegie–Ames–Stanford approach (CASA) model.