Carbon dioxide fluxes and carbon balance of an agricultural grassland in southern Finland

A significant proportion of the global carbon emissions to the atmosphere originate from agriculture. Therefore, continuous long-term monitoring of CO2 fluxes is essential to understand the carbon dynamics and balances of different agricultural sites. Here we present results from a new eddy covariance flux measurement site located in southern Finland. We measured CO2 and H2O fluxes at this agricultural grassland site for 2 years, from May 2018 to May 2020. In particular the first summer experienced prolonged dry periods, which affected the CO2 fluxes, and substantially larger fluxes were observed in the second summer. During the dry summer, leaf area index (LAI) was notably lower than in the second summer. Water use efficiency increased with LAI in a similar manner in both years, but photosynthetic capacity per leaf area was lower during the dry summer. The annual carbon balance was calculated based on the CO2 fluxes and management measures, which included input of carbon as organic fertilizers and output as yield. The carbon balance of the field was -57 +/- 10 and -86 +/- 12 g C m(-2) yr(-1) in the first and second study years, respectively.Peer reviewe

Lawns and meadows in urban green space – a comparison from perspectives of greenhouse gases, drought resilience and plant functional types

Today, city planners design urban futures by considering environmental degradation and climate mitigation. Here, we studied the greenhouse gas fluxes of urban lawns and meadows and linked the observations with plant functional types and soil properties. In eight lawns and eight meadows in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes were measured using manual chambers, and plant functional types were recorded. Four of these sites, i.e. an irrigated lawn, an old mesic meadow, a non-irrigated lawn and a young dry meadow, were more intensively studied in 2021–2022. The process-based ecosystem model JSBACH was utilized together with the momentary observations collected approximately every second week on CO2 exchange to quantify the annual carbon (C) balance of these sites. On the remaining sites, we studied the initial dynamics of conversion from lawns to meadows by transforming parts of lawns to meadows in late 2020 and conducting measurements from 2020 to 2022. The mean photosynthetic production (GPP) of the irrigated lawn and mesic meadow was the highest in this study, whereas the dry meadow had the lowest GPP. The studied lawns were stronger C sinks compared to the meadows. However, the net exchange values were uncertain as the soils were not in equilibrium with the vegetation at all sites, which is common for urban habitats, and modelling the heterotrophic emissions was therefore challenging. The conversion from a lawn to a meadow did not affect the fluxes of CH4 and N2O. Moreover, the mesic meadow was more resistant to drought events than the non-irrigated lawn. Lastly, the proportion of herbaceous flowering plants other than grasses was higher in meadows than in lawns. Even though social and economic aspects also steer urban development, these results can guide planning when considering environmentally friendlier green spaces and carbon smartness.</p

Meteorological responses of carbon dioxide and methane fluxes in the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of a subarctic landscape

The subarctic landscape consists of a mosaic of forest, peatland, and aquatic ecosystems and their ecotones. The carbon (C) exchange between ecosystems and the atmosphere through carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) fluxes varies spatially and temporally among these ecosystems. Our study area in Kaamanen in northern Finland covered 7 km(2) of boreal subarctic landscape with upland forest, open peatland, pine bogs, and lakes. We measured the CO2 and CH4 fluxes with eddy covariance and chambers between June 2017 and June 2019 and studied the C flux responses to varying meteorological conditions. The landscape area was an annual CO2 sink of -45 +/- 22 and -33 +/- 23 g C m(-2) and a CH4 source of 3.0 +/- 0.2 and 2.7 +/- 0.2 g Cm-2 during the first and second study years, respectively. The pine forest had the largest contribution to the landscape-level CO2 sink, -126 +/- 21 and -101 +/- 19 g C m(-2), and the fen to the CH4 emissions, 7.8 +/- 0.2 and 6.3 +/- 0.3 g C m(-2), during the first and second study years, respectively. The lakes within the area acted as CO2 and CH4 sources to the atmosphere throughout the measurement period, and a lake located downstream from the fen with organic sediment showed 4-fold fluxes compared to a mineral sediment lake. The annual C balances were affected most by the rainy peak growing season in 2017, the warm summer in 2018, and a heatwave and drought event in July 2018. The rainy period increased ecosystem respiration (ER) in the pine forest due to continuously high soil moisture content, and ER was on a level similar to the following, notably warmer, summer. A corresponding ER response to abundant precipitation was not observed for the fen ecosystem, which is adapted to high water table levels, and thus a higher ER sum was observed during the warm summer 2018. During the heat wave and drought period, similar responses were observed for all terrestrial ecosystems, with decreased gross primary productivity and net CO2 uptake, caused by the unfavourable growing conditions and plant stress due to the soil moisture and vapour pressure deficits. Additionally, the CH(4 )emissions from the fen decreased during and after the drought. However, the timing and duration of drought effects varied between the fen and forest ecosystems, as C fluxes were affected sooner and had a shorter post-drought recovery time in the fen than forest. The differing CO2 flux response to weather variations showed that terrestrial ecosystems can have a contrasting impact on the landscape-level C balance in a changing climate, even if they function similarly most of the time.Peer reviewe

Two contrasting years of continuous N₂O and CO₂ fluxes on a shallow-peated drained agricultural boreal peatland

Abstract Drained agricultural boreal peatlands comprise a large source of nitrous oxide (N₂O) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) but a small sink or source of methane (CH₄). N₂O fluxes have high spatial and temporal variability and are often measured with the chamber technique. Therefore, continuous measurements of N₂O fluxes are needed to better understand how N₂O emissions are triggered and to reduce the uncertainty of annual N₂O budget estimations. Here we present a two-year-long time series of continuous measurements of CO₂ and N₂O fluxes of a shallow-peated drained agricultural boreal peatland cultivated for grass silage. The fluxes were measured with the area-averaging eddy covariance technique. Several NO peak events were observed throughout all seasons. The peaks were associated with meteorological or management events, such as soil thawing or freezing, precipitation, fertilization and glyphosate application. The annual N₂O budget was 4.74 ±0.47 and 6.08 ±0.49 kg NO-N ha⁻¹ y⁻¹ in 2020 and 2021, respectively. The annual CO₂ budget, comprising the sum of net ecosystem exchange and biomass export, was 3.70 ±0.22 and 5.54 ±0.33 t CO₂-C ha⁻¹ y⁻¹ in 2020 and 2021, respectively. The N₂O budget during the first, warmer winter was 106% higher than during the second, meteorologically more typical winter, due to the higher frequency of soil freezing–thawing cycles. The average annual NO budget was 36%–50% lower than the IPCC Emission Factor (EF) while the CO₂ budget was in accordance with the IPCC EF. CO₂ emissions dominated the total CO₂-eq emissions of our site but N₂O also had a significant contribution of 12%. Our results also suggest that glyphosate application enhanced N₂O emissions in the last quarter of 2021. However, the full rotation should be measured to confirm whether there is a need to re-evaluate the N₂O IPCC EF for ‘grassland drained boreal’ land-use class