ALBERT

Description: © The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques 7 (2014): 2787-2805, doi:10.5194/amt-7-2787-2014.

Description: Our understanding of biosphere–atmosphere exchange has been considerably enhanced by eddy covariance measurements. However, there remain many trace gases, such as molecular hydrogen (H2), that lack suitable analytical methods to measure their fluxes by eddy covariance. In such cases, flux-gradient methods can be used to calculate ecosystem-scale fluxes from vertical concentration gradients. The budget of atmospheric H2 is poorly constrained by the limited available observations, and thus the ability to quantify and characterize the sources and sinks of H2 by flux-gradient methods in various ecosystems is important. We developed an approach to make nonintrusive, automated measurements of ecosystem-scale H2 fluxes both above and below the forest canopy at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, for over a year. We used three flux-gradient methods to calculate the fluxes: two similarity methods that do not rely on a micrometeorological determination of the eddy diffusivity, K, based on (1) trace gases or (2) sensible heat, and one flux-gradient method that (3) parameterizes K. We quantitatively assessed the flux-gradient methods using CO2 and H2O by comparison to their simultaneous independent flux measurements via eddy covariance and soil chambers. All three flux-gradient methods performed well in certain locations, seasons, and times of day, and the best methods were trace gas similarity for above the canopy and K parameterization below it. Sensible heat similarity required several independent measurements, and the results were more variable, in part because those data were only available in the winter, when heat fluxes and temperature gradients were small and difficult to measure. Biases were often observed between flux-gradient methods and the independent flux measurements, and there was at least a 26% difference in nocturnal eddy-derived net ecosystem exchange (NEE) and chamber measurements. H2 fluxes calculated in a summer period agreed within their uncertainty and pointed to soil uptake as the main driver of H2 exchange at Harvard Forest, with H2 deposition velocities ranging from 0.04 to 0.10 cm s−1.

Description: L. K. Meredith was supported through the following funding sources: NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, multiple grants from NASA to MIT for the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), MIT Center for Global Change Science, MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, MIT Martin Family Society of Fellows for Sustainability, MIT Ally of Nature Research Fund, MIT William Otis Crosby Lectureship, and MIT Warren Klein Fund. Operation of the EMS flux tower was supported by the Office of Science (BER), US Dept. of Energy (DE-SC0004985), and is a component of the Harvard Forest LTER, supported by National Science Foundation.

Description: © The Authors, 2010. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 7 (2010): 2147-2157, doi:10.5194/bg-7-2147-2010.

Description: Soil respiration (SR) constitutes the largest flux of CO2 from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere. However, there still exist considerable uncertainties as to its actual magnitude, as well as its spatial and interannual variability. Based on a reanalysis and synthesis of 80 site-years for 57 forests, plantations, savannas, shrublands and grasslands from boreal to tropical climates we present evidence that total annual SR is closely related to SR at mean annual soil temperature (SRMAT), irrespective of the type of ecosystem and biome. This is theoretically expected for non water-limited ecosystems within most of the globally occurring range of annual temperature variability and sensitivity (Q10). We further show that for seasonally dry sites where annual precipitation (P) is lower than potential evapotranspiration (PET), annual SR can be predicted from wet season SRMAT corrected for a factor related to P/PET. Our finding indicates that it can be sufficient to measure SRMAT for obtaining a well constrained estimate of its annual total. This should substantially increase our capacity for assessing the spatial distribution of soil CO2 emissions across ecosystems, landscapes and regions, and thereby contribute to improving the spatial resolution of a major component of the global carbon cycle.

Description: Data synthesis was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) grant P18756-B16 to MB. MR acknowledges funding from the European Research Council to the QUASOM project (ERC-2007-StG-208516).

Description: © The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 11 (2014): 3685-3693, doi:10.5194/bg-11-3685-2014.

Description: Increasing numbers of studies have suggested that a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of cropping practices on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per unit yield (yield-scaled), rather than by land area (area-scaled), is needed to inform trade-off decisions to increase yields and reduce GHG emissions. We conducted a meta-analysis to quantify impacts of rice varieties on the global warming potential (GWP) of GHG emissions at the yield scale in China. Our results showed that significantly higher yield-scaled GWP occurred with indica rice varieties (1101.72 kg CO2 equiv. Mg−1) than japonica rice varieties (711.38 kg CO2 equiv. Mg−1). Lower yield-scaled GHG emissions occurred within 120–130 days of growth duration after transplanting (GDAT; 613.66 kg CO2 equiv. Mg−1), followed by 90–100 days of GDAT (749.72 kg CO2 equiv. Mg−1, 100–110 days of GDAT (794.29 kg CO2 equiv. Mg−1), and 70–80 days of GDAT (800.85 kg CO2 equiv. Mg−1). The fertilizer rate of 150–200 kg N ha−1 resulted in the lowest yield-scaled GWP. Consequently, appropriate cultivar choice and pairs were of vital importance in the rice cropping system. A further life cycle assessment of GHG emissions among rice varieties at the yield scale is urgently needed to develop win–win policies for rice production to achieve higher yield with lower emissions.

Description: This research was part of the National Programs for High-Yielding Rice Science and Technology (Grant no. 2013BAD07B11) and the Project for “12th 5-year plan” Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest (Grant No. 201203081).

Description: © The Authors, 2010. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 7 (2010): 3447–3457, doi:10.5194/bg-7-3447-2010.

Description: We had continuously measured soil CO2 efflux (Rs) in a larch forest in northern Japan at hourly intervals for the snow-free period in 2003 with an automated chamber system and partitioned Rs into heterotrophic respiration (Rh) and autotrophic respiration (Rr) by using the trench method. In addition, we applied the soil CO2 concentration gradients method to continuously measure soil CO2 profiles under snowpack in the snowy period and to partition Rs into topsoil (Oa and A horizons) CO2 efflux (Ft) with a depth of 0.13 m and sub-soil (C horizon) CO2 efflux (Fc). We found that soil CO2 effluxes were strongly affected by the seasonal variation of soil temperature but weakly correlated with soil moisture, probably because the volumetric soil moisture (30–40% at 95% confidence interval) was within a plateau region for root and microbial activities. The soil CO2 effluxes changed seasonally in parallel with soil temperature in topsoil with the peak in late summer. On the other hand, the contribution of Rr to Rs was the largest at about 50% in early summer, when canopy photosynthesis and plant growth were more active. The temperature sensitivity (Q10) of Rr peaked in June. Under snowpack, Rs was stable until mid-March and then gradually increased with snow melting. Rs summed up to 79 gC m−2 during the snowy season for 4 months. The annual Rs was determined at 934 gC m−2 y−1 in 2003, which accounted for 63% of ecosystem respiration. The annual contributions of Rh and Rs to Rs were 57% and 43%, respectively. Based on the gradient approach, Rs was partitioned vertically into litter (Oi and Oe horizons) with a depth of 0.01–0.02 m, topsoil and sub-soil respirations with proportions of 6, 72 and 22%, respectively, on an annual basis. The vertical distribution of CO2 efflux was consistent with those of soil carbon and root biomass.

Description: This work was supported by the Global Environmental Research Fund (B-073), Ministry of the Environment, Japan and Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No. 13480150) from JSPS.