Night-time airflow in a forest canopy near a mountain crest

peer reviewedNight-time airflow within a deep and dense canopy near the top of a mountain ridge is investigated based on measurements at Bily Kriz, Czech Republic. The site is characterized by a young Norway spruce forest on a 13 degrees slope and the occurrence of almost exclusively upslope or downslope flows. The forest canopy reaches the ground surface. A decoupled two-layer structure of canopy flow typically develops at night. While the above-canopy flow is most frequently an upslope-directed larger-scale flow over the ridge, the lower-canopy flow is downslope (katabatic). However, the lower-canopy flow can be forced upslope when the wind speed above the canopy exceeds a well-defined limit. Less frequently, on the lee slope to the larger-scale flow, both the above-canopy and the lower-canopy flow are usually downslope, although a flow reversal in the lower canopy is also observed, accompanied with a large shear stress (friction velocity) above the canopy. The occurrence of opposing flows is not limited to sunset/sunrise transition periods. In a simplified modelling approach to the dynamics of the nocturnal lower-canopy flow decoupled from above, local equilibrium is assumed of solely two opposing driving forces - one induced by the negative buoyancy (due to radiative cooling of the canopy) and the other by the hydrodynamic pressure gradient (resulting from the larger-scale flow over the ridge) - and the canopy drag as a retarding force. The diagnostic model gives realistic values of the major driving terms for Bily Kriz, and the downslope or upslope direction and speed of the lower-canopy flow that agree well with the measurements. The model contributes to better interpretation of the experimental results, which are in accordance with recent publications on the flow patterns on forested hills. Knowledge of the lower-canopy flow behaviour and of the degree of its decoupling from the flow aloft is necessary for assessing the contribution of advection to the CO2 budget at sloping forest sites, and for analysis of the flux footprint. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Soil surface CO2 efflux measurements in Norway spruce forests: Comparison between four different sites across Europe - from boreal to alpine forest

Extensive measurements of soil surface (including vegetation cover) CO2 efflux were carried out on 80 positions at four different forest sites (Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic and Italy) using a closed dynamic chamber technique. The period of measurement was 4-5 consecutive days per site. Two approaches were used to analyze the measured data, the Q(10) parameter and the Arrhenius relationship. Basic environmental factors such as soil temperature and moisture were measured. All the four investigated sites showed a positive dependence of the soil surface CO2 efflux on soil temperature. The four datasets generally resulted in good agreement (up to 93%) between the approaches and residual analysis showed no significant difference between approaches (less than 8%). The Q(10) ranged between 2.0 and 23 among the sites. The highest spatial variation of the soil surface CO2 efflux at 10 degrees C (expressed by the coefficient of variation CV) ranged from 30 to 65% between sites. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Extreme warm temperatures alter forest phenology and productivity in Europe

Recent climate warming has shifted the timing of spring and autumn vegetation phenological events in the temperate and boreal forest ecosystems of Europe. In many areas spring phenological events start earlier and autumn events switch between earlier and later onset. Consequently, the length of growing season in mid and high latitudes of European forest is extended. However, the lagged effects (i.e. the impact of a warm spring or autumn on the subsequent phenological events) on vegetation phenology and productivity are less explored. In this study, we have (1) characterised extreme warm spring and extreme warm autumn events in Europe during 2003-2011, and (2) investigated if direct impact on forest phenology and productivity due to a specific warm event translated to a lagged effect in subsequent phenological events. We found that warmer events in spring occurred extensively in high latitude Europe producing a significant earlier onset of greening (OG) in broadleaf deciduous forest (BLDF) and mixed forest (MF). However, this earlier OG did not show any significant lagged effects on autumnal senescence. Needleleaf evergreen forest (NLEF), BLDF and MF showed a significantly delayed end of senescence (EOS) as a result of extreme warm autumn events; and in the following year’s spring phenological events, OG started significantly earlier. Extreme warm spring events directly led to significant (p=0.0189) increases in the productivity of BLDF. In order to have a complete understanding of ecosystems response to warm temperature during key phenological events, particularly autumn events, the lagged effect on the next growing season should be considered

A New Mass Conservation Approach to the Study of CO2 Advection in an Alpine Forest

A new method is proposed for the computation of CO2 Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) and its components in a forest ecosystem. Advective flux is estimated by taking into account the air mass conservation principle. For this purpose, wind and dry air density values on the surface of the control volume are first corrected and then the advective flux is estimated on the surface of the control volume. Turbulent flux is also computed along the surface of the control volume while storage flux is computed inside the volume. Additional characteristics of this method are that incompressibility of the mean flow is not assumed a priori, and that vertical and horizontal advective fluxes are not treated separately, but their sum is estimated directly. The methodology is applied to experimental data collected with a three-dimensional scheme at the alpine site of Renon during the ADVEX project (July 2005). The advection flux was found to be prevailing positive at night and negative during the day, as was found in previous studies on advection for the same site, but showed a lower scatter in half-hour calculated values. We tested the effect of its summation on turbulent and storage fluxes to produce half-hourly values of NEE. Nighttime NEE values were used in functional relations with soil temperature, daytime values with PPFD. The effect of addition of the advection component was an increase in the values of parameters indicating ecosystem respiration, quantum yield and photosynthetic capacity. The coefficient of correlation between NEE and environmental drivers increased.JRC.H.2-Air and Climat

Standardisation of chamber technique for CO2, N2O and CH4 fluxes measurements from terrestrial ecosystems

Chamber measurements of trace gas fluxes between the land surface and the atmosphere have been conducted for almost a century. Different chamber techniques, including static and dynamic, have been used with varying degrees of success in estimating greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O) fluxes. However, all of these have certain disadvantages which have either prevented them from providing an adequate estimate of greenhouse gas exchange or restricted them to be used under limited conditions. Generally, chamber methods are relatively low in cost and simple to operate. In combination with the appropriate sample allocations, chamber methods are adaptable for a wide variety of studies from local to global spatial scales, and they are particularly well suited for in situ and laboratory-based studies. Consequently, chamber measurements will play an important role in the portfolio of the Pan-European long-term research infrastructure Integrated Carbon Observation System. The respective working group of the Integrated Carbon Observation System Ecosystem Monitoring Station Assembly has decided to ascertain standards and quality checks for automated and manual chamber systems instead of defining one or several standard systems provided by commercial manufacturers in order to define minimum requirements for chamber measurements. The defined requirements and recommendations related to chamber measurements are described here.Peer reviewe

ADVEX - The CarboEurope-Integrated Project Advection Experiment Data Set

<p>Extensive field measurements have been performed at three CarboEurope-Integrated Project forest sites with different topography (Renon/Ritten, Italian Alps, Italy; Wetzstein, Thuringia, Germany; Norunda, Uppland, Sweden) to evaluate the relevant terms of the carbon balance by measuring CO2 concentrations [CO2] and the wind field in a 3D multitower cube setup. The same experimental setup (geometry and instrumentation) and the same methodology were applied to all the three experiments. Refer to Feigenwinter et al. (2008), <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2007.08.013">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2007.08.013</a> for more details of the ADVEX campaign.</p>This work received funding from CE-IP (CarboEurope-Integrated Project) of the European Commission (GOCECT2003- 505572). Special thanks go to the following administrative, scientific and technical staff: to Luigi Minach and Guenther Kerschbaumer of the Agency of Environment and to workers from the Forest Service of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, Italy; to Michael Hielscher and many others from the field division of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany; to Thomas Pluntke from the Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology of the Technical University of Dresden, Germany; to Alain Debacq from the Faculte´ Universitaire des Sciences Agronomiques de Gembloux, Belgium; to Monika trömgren, Anders Bath and Lars-Olov Karlsson of the GeoBioshpere Science Centre of the Lund University, Sweden. The corresponding author's thanks go to Roland Vogt and Eberhard Parlow, Institute ofMeteorology, Climatology and Remote Sensing at University Basel, Switzerland, for their support in instrumentation and infrastructure. The ADVEX field activities would not have been possible without the substantial support from all participating institutions

Comparison of horizontal and vertical advective CO2 fluxes at three forest sites

Extensive field measurements have been performed at three CarboEurope-Integrated Project forest sites with different topography (Renon/Ritten, Italian Alps, Italy; Wetzstein, Thuringia, Germany; Norunda, Uppland, Sweden) to evaluate the relevant terms of the carbon balance by measuring CO2 concentrations [CO2] and the wind field in a 3D multi-tower cube setup. The same experimental setup (geometry and instrumentation) and the same methodology were applied to all the three experiments. It is shown that all sites are affected by advection in different ways and strengths. Everywhere, vertical advection (F-VA) occurred only at night. During the day, F-VA disappeared because of turbulent mixing, leading to a uniform vertical profile of [CO2]. Mean F-VA was nearly zero at the hilly site (wetzstein) and at the flat site (Norunda). However, large, momentary positive or negative contributions occurred at the flat site, whereas vertical non-turbulent fluxes were generally very small at the hilly site. At the slope site (Renon), F-VA was always positive at night because of the permanently negative mean vertical wind component resulting from downslope winds. Horizontal advection also occurred mainly at night. It was positive at the slope site and negative at the flat site in the mean diurnal course. The size of the averaged non-turbulent advective fluxes was of the same order of magnitude as the turbulent flux measured by eddy-covariance technique, but the scatter was very high. This implies that it is not advisable to use directly measured quantities of the non-turbulent advective fluxes for the estimation of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) on e.g. an hourly basis. However, situations with and without advection were closely related to local or synoptic meteorological conditions. Thus, it is possible to separate advection affected NEE estimates from fluxes which are representative of the source term. However, the development of a robust correction scheme for advection requires a more detailed site-specific analysis of single events for the identification of the relevant processes. This paper presents mean characteristics of the advective CO2 fluxes in a first site-to-site comparison and evaluates the main problems for future research. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

A new mass conservation approach to the study of CO2 advection in an alpine forest

A new method is proposed for the computation of CO 2 Net Ecosystem Exchange(NEE) and its components in a forest ecosystem. Advective flux is estimated by takinginto account the air mass conservation principle. For this purpose, wind and dry airdensity values on the surface of the control volume are first corrected and then theadvective flux is estimated on the surface of the control volume. Turbulent flux is alsocomputed along the surface of the control volume while storage flux is computed insidethe volume. Additional characteristics of this method are that incompressibility of themean flow is not assumed a priori, and that vertical and horizontal advective fluxes are nottreated separately, but their sum is estimated directly. The methodology is applied toexperimental data collected with a three-dimensional scheme at the alpine site of Renonduring the Advex project (July 2005). The advection flux was found to be prevailingpositive at night and negative during the day, as was found in previous studies onadvection for the same site, but showed a lower scatter in half-hour calculated values. Wetested the effect of its summation on turbulent and storage fluxes to produce half-hourlyvalues of NEE. Nighttime NEE values were used in functional relations with soiltemperature, daytime values with PPFD. The effect of addition of the advectioncomponent was an increase in the values of parameters indicating ecosystem respiration,quantum yield, and photosynthetic capacity. The coefficient of correlation between NEEand environmental drivers increased

On the separation of net ecosystem exchange into assimilation and ecosystem respiration: review and improved algorithm

This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods that separate net ecosystem exchange (NEE) into its major components, gross ecosystem carbon uptake (GEP) and ecosystem respiration (R-eco). In particular, we analyse the effect of the extrapolation of night-time values of ecosystem respiration into the daytime; this is usually done with a temperature response function that is derived from long-term data sets. For this analysis, we used 16 one-year-long data sets of carbon dioxide exchange measurements from European and US-American eddy covariance networks. These sites span from the boreal to Mediterranean climates, and include deciduous and evergreen forest, scrubland and crop ecosystems. We show that the temperature sensitivity of R-eco, derived from long-term (annual) data sets, does not reflect the short-term temperature sensitivity that is effective when extrapolating from night- to daytime. Specifically, in summer active ecosystems the long-term temperature sensitivity exceeds the short-term sensitivity. Thus, in those ecosystems, the application of a long-term temperature sensitivity to the extrapolation of respiration from night to day leads to a systematic overestimation of ecosystem respiration from half-hourly to annual time-scales, which can reach > 25% for an annual budget and which consequently affects estimates of GEP. Conversely, in summer passive (Mediterranean) ecosystems, the long-term temperature sensitivity is lower than the short-term temperature sensitivity resulting in underestimation of annual sums of respiration. We introduce a new generic algorithm that derives a short-term temperature sensitivity of R-eco from eddy covariance data that applies this to the extrapolation from night- to daytime, and that further performs a filling of data gaps that exploits both, the covariance between fluxes and meteorological drivers and the temporal structure of the fluxes. While this algorithm should give less biased estimates of GEP and R-eco, we discuss the remaining biases and recommend that eddy covariance measurements are still backed by ancillary flux measurements that can reduce the uncertainties inherent in the eddy covariance data