1. |
- Flechard, Chris R., et al.
(author)
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Carbon-nitrogen interactions in European forests and semi-natural vegetation - Part 1: Fluxes and budgets of carbon, nitrogen and greenhouse gases from ecosystem monitoring and modelling
- 2020
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In: Biogeosciences. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1726-4170 .- 1726-4189. ; 17:6, s. 1583-1620
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The impact of atmospheric reactive nitrogen (N-r) deposition on carbon (C) sequestration in soils and biomass of unfertilized, natural, semi-natural and forest ecosystems has been much debated. Many previous results of this dC/dN response were based on changes in carbon stocks from periodical soil and ecosystem inventories, associated with estimates of N-r deposition obtained from large-scale chemical transport models. This study and a companion paper (Flechard et al., 2020) strive to reduce uncertainties of N effects on C sequestration by linking multi-annual gross and net ecosystem productivity estimates from 40 eddy covariance flux towers across Europe to local measurement-based estimates of dry and wet N-r deposition from a dedicated collocated monitoring network. To identify possible ecological drivers and processes affecting the interplay between C and N-r inputs and losses, these data were also combined with in situ flux measurements of NO, N2O and CH4 fluxes; soil NO3- leaching sampling; and results of soil incubation experiments for N and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as surveys of available data from online databases and from the literature, together with forest ecosystem (BAS-FOR) modelling. Multi-year averages of net ecosystem productivity (NEP) in forests ranged from -70 to 826 gCm(-2) yr(-1) at total wet + dry inorganic N-r deposition rates (N-dep) of 0.3 to 4.3 gNm(-2) yr(-1) and from -4 to 361 g Cm-2 yr(-1) at N-dep rates of 0.1 to 3.1 gNm(-2) yr(-1) in short semi-natural vegetation (moorlands, wetlands and unfertilized extensively managed grasslands). The GHG budgets of the forests were strongly dominated by CO2 exchange, while CH4 and N2O exchange comprised a larger proportion of the GHG balance in short semi-natural vegetation. Uncertainties in elemental budgets were much larger for nitrogen than carbon, especially at sites with elevated N-dep where N-r leaching losses were also very large, and compounded by the lack of reliable data on organic nitrogen and N-2 losses by denitrification. Nitrogen losses in the form of NO, N2O and especially NO3- were on average 27%(range 6 %-54 %) of N-dep at sites with N-dep < 1 gNm(-2) yr(-1) versus 65% (range 35 %-85 %) for N-dep > 3 gNm(-2) yr(-1). Such large levels of N-r loss likely indicate that different stages of N saturation occurred at a number of sites. The joint analysis of the C and N budgets provided further hints that N saturation could be detected in altered patterns of forest growth. Net ecosystem productivity increased with N-r deposition up to 2-2.5 gNm(-2) yr(-1), with large scatter associated with a wide range in carbon sequestration efficiency (CSE, defined as the NEP/GPP ratio). At elevated N-dep levels (> 2.5 gNm(-2) yr(-1)), where inorganic N-r losses were also increasingly large, NEP levelled off and then decreased. The apparent increase in NEP at low to intermediate N-dep levels was partly the result of geographical cross-correlations between N-dep and climate, indicating that the actual mean dC/dN response at individual sites was significantly lower than would be suggested by a simple, straightforward regression of NEP vs. N-dep.
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2. |
- Feigenwinter, Christian, et al.
(author)
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Comparison of horizontal and vertical advective CO2 fluxes at three forest sites
- 2008
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In: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-2240 .- 0168-1923. ; 148:1, s. 12-24
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- 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.
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3. |
- Feigenwinter, Christian, et al.
(author)
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Spatiotemporal evolution of CO2 concentration, temperature, and wind field during stable nights at the Norunda forest site
- 2010
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In: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-2240 .- 0168-1923. ; 150:5, s. 692-701
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Unusually high CO2 concentrations were frequently observed during stable nights in late summer 2006 at the CarboEurope-Integrated Project (CEIP) forest site in Norunda, Sweden. Mean CO2 concentrations in the layer below the height of the eddy-covariance measurement system at 30 m reached up to 500 mu mol mol(-1) and large vertical and horizontal gradients occurred, leading to very large advective fluxes with a high variability in size and direction. CO2 accumulation was found to build up in the second part of the night, when the stratification in the canopy sub-layer turned from stable to neutral. Largest vertical gradients of temperature and CO2 were shifted from close to the ground early in the night to the crown space of the forest late at night, decoupling the canopy sub-layer from the surface roughness layer. At the top of the canopy at 25 m CO2 concentrations up to 480 mu mol mol(-1) were observed at all four tower locations of the 3D cube setup and concentrations were still high (>400 mu mol mol(-1)) at the 100 m level of the Central tower. The vertical profiles of horizontal advective fluxes during the nights under investigation were similar and showed largest negative horizontal advection (equivalent to an additional CO2-sink) to occur in the crown space of the forest, and not, as usually expected, close to the ground. The magnitude of these fluxes was sometimes larger than 50 mu mol m(-2) s(-1)and they were caused by the large horizontal CO2 concentration gradients with maximum values of up to 1 mu mol mol(-1) m(-1). As a result of these high within canopy CO2 concentrations, the vertical advection also became large with frequent changes of direction according to the sign of the mean vertical wind component, which showed very small values scattering around zero. Inaccuracy of the sonic anemometer at such low wind velocities is the reason for uncertainty in vertical advection, whereas for horizontal advection, instrument errors were small compared to the fluxes. The advective fluxes during these nights were unusually high and it is not clear what they represent in relation to the biotic fluxes. Advection is most likely a scale overlapping process. With a control volume of about 100 m x 100 m x 30 m and the applied spatial resolution of the sensors, we obviously miss relevant information from processes in the mesoscale as well as in the turbulent scale. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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4. |
- Moderow, Uta, et al.
(author)
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Available energy and energy balance closure at four coniferous forest sites across Europe
- 2009
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In: Theoretical and Applied Climatology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1434-4483 .- 0177-798X. ; 98:3-4, s. 397-412
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The available energy (AE), driving the turbulent fluxes of sensible heat and latent heat at the earth surface, was estimated at four partly complex coniferous forest sites across Europe (Tharandt, Germany; Ritten/Renon, Italy; Wetzstein, Germany; Norunda, Sweden). Existing data of net radiation were used as well as storage change rates calculated from temperature and humidity measurements to finally calculate the AE of all forest sites with uncertainty bounds. Data of the advection experiments MORE II (Tharandt) and ADVEX (Renon, Wetzstein, Norunda) served as the main basis. On-site data for referencing and cross-checking of the available energy were limited. Applied cross checks for net radiation (modelling, referencing to nearby stations and ratio of net radiation to global radiation) did not reveal relevant uncertainties. Heat storage of sensible heat J (H), latent heat J (E), heat storage of biomass J (veg) and heat storage due to photosynthesis J (C) were of minor importance during day but of some importance during night, where J (veg) turned out to be the most important one. Comparisons of calculated storage terms (J (E), J (H)) at different towers of one site showed good agreement indicating that storage change calculated at a single point is representative for the whole canopy at sites with moderate heterogeneity. The uncertainty in AE was assessed on the basis of literature values and the results of the applied cross checks for net radiation. The absolute mean uncertainty of AE was estimated to be between 41 and 52 W m(-2) (10-11 W m(-2) for the sum of the storage terms J and soil heat flux G) during mid-day (approximately 12% of AE). At night, the absolute mean uncertainty of AE varied from 20 to about 30 W m(-2) (approximately 6 W m(-2) for J plus G) resulting in large relative uncertainties as AE itself is small. An inspection of the energy balance showed an improvement of closure when storage terms were included and that the imbalance cannot be attributed to the uncertainties in AE alone.
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5. |
- Nicolini, Giacomo, et al.
(author)
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Impact of CO2 storage flux sampling uncertainty on net ecosystem exchange measured by eddy covariance
- 2018
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In: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-1923. ; 248, s. 228-239
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Complying with several assumption and simplifications, most of the carbon budget studies based on eddy covariance (EC) measurements quantify the net ecosystem exchange (NEE) by summing the flux obtained by EC (FC) and the storage flux (SC). SC is the rate of change of a scalar, CO2 molar fraction in this case, within the control volume underneath the EC measurement level. It is given by the difference in the quasi-instantaneous profiles of concentration at the beginning and end of the EC averaging period, divided by the averaging period. The approaches used to estimate SC largely vary, from measurements based on a single sampling point usually located at the EC measurement height, to measurements based on profile sampling. Generally a single profile is used, although multiple profiles can be positioned within the control volume. Measurement accuracy reasonably increases with the spatial sampling intensity, however limited resources often prevent more elaborated measurement systems. In this study we use the experimental dataset collected during the ADVEX campaign in which turbulent and non-turbulent fluxes were measured in three forest sites by the simultaneous use of five towers/profiles. Our main objectives are to evaluate both the uncertainty of SC that derives from an insufficient sampling of CO2 variability, and its impact on concurrent NEE estimates.Results show that different measurement methods may produce substantially different SC flux estimates which in some cases involve a significant underestimation of the actual SC at a half-hourly time scales. A proper measuring system, that uses a single vertical profile of which the CO2 sampled at 3 points (the two closest to the ground and the one at the lower fringe of the canopy layer) is averaged with CO2 sampled at a certain distance and at the same height, improves the horizontal representativeness and reduces this (proportional) bias to 2–10% in such ecosystems. While the effect of this error is minor on long term NEE estimates, it can produce significant uncertainty on half-hourly NEE fluxes.
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6. |
- Niu, Shuli, et al.
(author)
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Thermal optimality of net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide and underlying mechanisms.
- 2012
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In: New Phytologist. - : Wiley. - 1469-8137 .- 0028-646X. ; 194:3, s. 775-783
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- • It is well established that individual organisms can acclimate and adapt to temperature to optimize their functioning. However, thermal optimization of ecosystems, as an assemblage of organisms, has not been examined at broad spatial and temporal scales. • Here, we compiled data from 169 globally distributed sites of eddy covariance and quantified the temperature response functions of net ecosystem exchange (NEE), an ecosystem-level property, to determine whether NEE shows thermal optimality and to explore the underlying mechanisms. • We found that the temperature response of NEE followed a peak curve, with the optimum temperature (corresponding to the maximum magnitude of NEE) being positively correlated with annual mean temperature over years and across sites. Shifts of the optimum temperature of NEE were mostly a result of temperature acclimation of gross primary productivity (upward shift of optimum temperature) rather than changes in the temperature sensitivity of ecosystem respiration. • Ecosystem-level thermal optimality is a newly revealed ecosystem property, presumably reflecting associated evolutionary adaptation of organisms within ecosystems, and has the potential to significantly regulate ecosystem-climate change feedbacks. The thermal optimality of NEE has implications for understanding fundamental properties of ecosystems in changing environments and benchmarking global models.
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7. |
- Rebmann, Corinna, et al.
(author)
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ICOS eddy covariance flux-station site setup : A review
- 2018
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In: International Agrophysics. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 0236-8722 .- 2300-8725. ; 32:4, s. 471-494
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Integrated Carbon Observation System Research Infrastructure aims to provide long-Term, continuous observations of sources and sinks of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapour. At ICOS ecosystem stations, the principal technique for measurements of ecosystem-Atmosphere exchange of GHGs is the eddy-covariance technique. The establishment and setup of an eddy-covariance tower have to be carefully reasoned to ensure high quality flux measurements being representative of the investigated ecosystem and comparable to measurements at other stations. To fulfill the requirements needed for flux determination with the eddy-covariance technique, variations in GHG concentrations have to be measured at high frequency, simultaneously with the wind velocity, in order to fully capture turbulent fluctuations. This requires the use of high-frequency gas analysers and ultrasonic anemometers. In addition, to analyse flux data with respect to environmental conditions but also to enable corrections in the post-processing procedures, it is necessary to measure additional abiotic variables in close vicinity to the flux measurements. Here we describe the standards the ICOS ecosystem station network has adopted for GHG flux measurements with respect to the setup of instrumentation on towers to maximize measurement precision and accuracy while allowing for flexibility in order to observe specific ecosystem features.
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8. |
- Reichstein, Markus, et al.
(author)
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Determinants of terrestrial ecosystem carbon balance inferred from European eddy covariance flux sites
- 2007
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In: Geophysical Research Letters. - 1944-8007. ; 34:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Pioneering work in the last century has resulted in a widely accepted paradigm that primary production is strongly positively related to temperature and water availability such that the northern hemispheric forest carbon sink may increase under conditions of global warming. However, the terrestrial carbon sink at the ecosystem level (i.e. net ecosystem productivity, NEP) depends on the net balance between gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration ( TER). Through an analysis of European eddy covariance flux data sets, we find that the common climate relationships for primary production do not hold for NEP. This is explained by the fact that decreases in GPP are largely compensated by parallel decreases in TER when climatic factors become more limiting. Moreover, we found overall that water availability was a significant modulator of NEP, while the multivariate effect of mean annual temperature is small and not significant. These results indicate that climate- and particularly temperature-based projections of net carbon balance may be misleading. Future research should focus on interactions between the water and carbon cycles and the effects of disturbances on the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems.
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9. |
- Yi, Chuixiang, et al.
(author)
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Climate control of terrestrial carbon exchange across biomes and continents
- 2010
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In: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9326. ; 5:3
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Understanding the relationships between climate and carbon exchange by terrestrial ecosystems is critical to predict future levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide because of the potential accelerating effects of positive climate-carbon cycle feedbacks. However, directly observed relationships between climate and terrestrial CO2 exchange with the atmosphere across biomes and continents are lacking. Here we present data describing the relationships between net ecosystem exchange of carbon (NEE) and climate factors as measured using the eddy covariance method at 125 unique sites in various ecosystems over six continents with a total of 559 site-years. We find that NEE observed at eddy covariance sites is (1) a strong function of mean annual temperature at mid-and high-latitudes, (2) a strong function of dryness at mid-and low-latitudes, and (3) a function of both temperature and dryness around the mid-latitudinal belt (45 degrees N). The sensitivity of NEE to mean annual temperature breaks down at similar to 16 degrees C (a threshold value of mean annual temperature), above which no further increase of CO2 uptake with temperature was observed and dryness influence overrules temperature influence.
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