The flask monitoring program for high-precision atmospheric measurements of greenhouse gases, stable isotopes, and radiocarbon in the central Amazon region

Abstract

Long-term and high-precision measurements of the mole fraction of greenhouse gases (GHG), together with their isotopic composition, are of fundamental importance to understand land–atmosphere interactions. Current flask monitoring programs have important information gaps in large regions of the Earth, particularly in the southern hemisphere and in continental tropical regions. Here, we report on the initiation of a monitoring program and the resulting dataset of high-precision GHG measurements at the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO), located in the central Amazon region of Brazil. In September 2021, we installed an automated flask sampler designed and built by the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) to collect air samples in 3 L flasks at a height of 324 m above ground level (m a.g.l.). Samples are collected weekly, during a one-hour integration time between 13:00 and 14:00 h LT (17:00–18:00 UTC). The flasks are shipped to Jena, Germany, for analyses of CO2, CO, CH4, N2O, H2, SF6, δ13C−CO2, 114C−CO2, δ18O−CO2, δ13C−CH4, δ2H−CH4, O2/N2, and Ar/N2 at the laboratories of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC). Measurements from this monitoring program provide reference information for this site and act as an additional independent quality control for other measurements in the region. The record of SF6 and simulations based on a regional atmospheric transport model suggest that the footprint of the measurements is predominantly from the southeasterly and northeasterly directions. The time series of the different gas species measured in this monitoring program are being made publicly available through the ATTO data portal (https://doi.org/10.17871/ATTO.574.13.2365, Sierra et al., 2025).