Reactive nitrogen fluxes over peatland and forest ecosystems using micrometeorological measurement techniques

Abstract

Interactions of reactive nitrogen (Nr) compounds between the atmosphere and the earth's surface play a key role in atmospheric chemistry and in understanding nutrient cycling of terrestrial ecosystems. While continuous observations of inert greenhouse gases through micrometeorological flux measurements have become a common procedure, information about temporal dynamics and longer-term budgets of Nr compounds is still extremely limited. Within the framework of the research projects NITROSPHERE and FORESTFLUX, field campaigns were carried out to investigate the biosphere-atmosphere exchange of selected Nr compounds over different land surfaces. The aim of the campaigns was to test and establish novel measurement techniques in eddy-covariance setups for continuous determination of surface fluxes of ammonia (NH3) and total reactive nitrogen (ςNr) using two different analytical devices. While high-frequency measurements of NH3 were conducted with a quantum cascade laser (QCL) absorption spectrometer, a custom-built converter called Total Reactive Atmospheric Nitrogen Converter (TRANC) connected and operated upstream of a chemiluminescence detector (CLD) was used for the measurement of ςNr. As high-resolution data of Nr surface-atmosphere exchange are still scarce but highly desired for testing and validating local inferential and larger-scale models, we provide access to campaign data including concentrations, fluxes, and ancillary measurements of meteorological parameters. Campaigns (nCombining double low line4) were carried out in natural (forest) and semi-natural (peatland) ecosystem types. The published datasets stress the importance of recent advancements in laser spectrometry and help improve our understanding of the temporal variability of surface-atmosphere exchange in different ecosystems, thereby providing validation opportunities for inferential models simulating the exchange of reactive nitrogen. The dataset has been placed in the Zenodo repository (10.5281/zenodo.4513854; Brümmer et al., 2022) and contains individual data files for each campaign.