There is an interesting discussion over at ScubaBoard how the non-decompression limit (NDL) is affected by the settings for gradient factors (GFlow and GFhigh), in particular which of the two is relevant. My initial reaction was: It’s clearly GFlow, as that sets the depth of the first stop and the criterion for NDL is that the (theoretical) first stop is at a depth of 0.
Others argued that it must be GFhigh as that applies, by definition, at the surface.
And indeed, in this limit (of the first stop is at the surface) the idea of gradient factors degenerates: In that limit, the rate of change of effective gradient factor as a function of depth diverges. So, like in the last post, there is an interesting point that involves taking limits.
What I had in mind is the implementation in Subsurface: As you can see, as long as there has not been a stop yet (because the ceiling is still above the surface), the effective gradient factor is GFlow. So, in a no decompression dive, you would think, you never see anything else.
But to show that in the recreational mode in the planner turned out so be quite hard: I had to play a lot with the parameters to find a dive where GFlow has any influence on the total dive time of a recreational dive (defined as a dive without mandatory stops and without running out of gas). Eventually I found one: For an air dive to 20m (with an ascent rate of 20m/min for the last segment, see below why this is important), you get a maximal run time of 49min with GF settings 20/100 while you can stay for 50min with GF settings of 100/100. But changing GFhigh has much stronger influence:


What did I miss? In the end, it’s the fine-print of the definition of “first stop depth” that I already talked about in an earlier post: The problem is that for real world dives there is no clear distinction between ascent and stop. So you need to come up with some definition which depth one wants to use to actually anchor GFlow. Subsurface uses the lowest ceiling encountered during the dive so far. But in particular for dives with very little (or none at all) deco obligation that is not exactly what others might consider the first stop depth. The difference is that the diver first need to get to that depth of the ceiling before the ceiling actually becomes a stop depth. And during that ascent, there is already off-gassing going on which can eliminate the ceiling during the time it takes the diver to get there.
As an example, you could have a first ceiling (which as I explained above is determined by GFlow) at say 1m of depth. But then, in this last meter of water, the effective gradient factor has to vary from GFlow to GFhigh. Given that we are talking about dives that are only marginally deco dives, it is likely that this first ceiling comes form a very fast tissue so it is likely that much of it goes away during the short time of ascent to that depth. Then, to find the NDL, the remaining question is if there is ceiling left below the surface. But then the GFlow is already anchored at 1m so for the surface it’s really GFhigh (and GFlow is no longer relevant as there is no ceiling left at 1m where it applies).
So the challenge to find a dive where GFlow makes any difference at all for the NDL was to produce a dive where there is something left of the initial ceiling at the time when the diver gets there in the marginal case of staying a little bit shorter not occurring any stops at all. So the dive must not be too deep (otherwise the ascent takes too long and there is a lot of on the way off-gassing). That’s why I had to increase the ascent rate.
So the upshot is: It is almost entirely GFhigh that sets the difference between a non-stop dive and a decompression stop dive. But if you stay a little bit longer the depth of your first stop (and also the duration) depends a lot on GFlow.
I should not end without pointing out that once more this discussion is quite academic: Gradient factors were invented for dives that have significant deco obligation to force deeper stops. Here, we are in the limit of recreational no-stop diving. So we are really not in the realm of gradient factors. And this manifests itself in the degeneracy of the model in the case of the ceiling being exactly at the surface that determines the NDL. But it was interesting anyway.