On using radon-222 and CO2 to calculate regional-scale CO2 fluxes
Item
Title (Dublin Core)
On using radon-222 and CO2 to calculate regional-scale CO2 fluxes
Description (Dublin Core)
Because of its ubiquitous release on land and well-characterized atmospheric loss, radon-222 has been very useful for deducing fluxes of greenhouse gases such as CO<sub>2</sub>, CH<sub>4</sub>, and N<sub>2</sub>O. It is shown here that the radon-tracer method, used in previous studies to calculate regional-scale greenhouse gas fluxes, returns a weighted-average flux (the flux field <i>F</i> weighted by the sensitivity of the measurements to that flux field, <i>f</i>) rather than an evenly-weighted spatial average flux. A synthetic data study using a Lagrangian particle dispersion model and modeled CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes suggests that the discrepancy between the sensitivity-weighted average flux and evenly-weighted spatial average flux can be significant in the case of CO<sub>2</sub>, due to covariance between <i>F</i> and <i>f</i> for biospheric CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes during the growing season and also for anthropogenic CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes in general. A technique is presented to correct the radon-tracer derived fluxes to yield an estimate of evenly-weighted spatial average CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes. A new method is also introduced for correcting the CO<sub>2</sub> flux estimates for the effects of radon-222 radioactive decay in the radon-tracer method.
Creator (Dublin Core)
Hirsch, A. I.
Date (Dublin Core)
2018-01-15
Type (Dublin Core)
Text
Format (Dublin Core)
application/pdf
Identifier (Dublin Core)
10.5194/acp-7-3737-2007
https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/7/3737/2007/
Source (Dublin Core)
eISSN: 1680-7324
Language (Dublin Core)
eng
