Eddy Covariance Flux Tower: A Promising Technique for Greenhouse Gases Measurement

Abstract

Anthropogenic activities have released huge amounts of greenhouse gases namely carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Buildup of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere causing climate change and it result in several dangerous effects to ecosystems functioning, human health and welfare. Over the past century we witnessed faster changing climate and it is going to be faster, if proper measures for its mitigation is not adopted. For effective mitigation of anthropogenic emission of these Greenhouse gases, it is really important to know the current total GHG emission and that is to at precisely. For measurements of GHGs emission two techniques are common namely closed chamber techniques and eddy covariance techniques. Till today, the closed chamber technique is the most popularly used. In this, emissions of gases from soil are usually determined by closed chamber placed over the soil surface, which restricts the volume of air exchange across the covered surface. Eddy covariance flux tower is the micrometeorological method which continuously measures the vertical concentration gradients of the gases. The present article is focused on the measurement of GHGs using eddy covariance flux tower and its importance over the closed chamber techniques.