 Solution

Let $\theta =T-T_0>0$ and ${\theta }_1=T_1-T_0$. The aperture spans the enclosure's depth $H$, so the incoming volume flux, equal to the outgoing volume flux, isOnly one of these equal exchange fluxes multiplies the temperature difference in the heat budget: incoming fluid brings $q{T}_0$, outgoing fluid removes $qT$. With constant mass density and specific heat capacity, those factors cancel and the well-mixed ventilation temperature balance isIntegrating from ${\theta }_1$ givesThe cooling is algebraic rather than exponential because the buoyancy-driven single-opening exchange flow weakens as its driving reduced gravity decreases. The formula assumes negligible wall heat capacity, no heat input, the specified aperture geometry, and a uniform interior temperature maintained by mixing.

With a low-level opening, the dense incoming cold fluid tends to spread along the floor instead of falling through the warm interior. A cold lower layer and warm upper layer develop, giving stable density stratification. The incoming fluid can short-circuit back out through the low opening after that layer occupies it, leaving warm fluid above poorly ventilated. Thus the uniform-temperature assumption is generally inappropriate: cooling becomes vertically nonuniform and substantially slower for the upper warm fluid. If mixing were artificially maintained, the same lumped budget would still apply; it is the loss of that assumption, rather than a reversal of buoyancy, that changes the physical outcome.