A cool-temperate young larch plantation as a net methane source - A 4-year continuous hyperbolic relaxed eddy accumulation and chamber measurements

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Upland forests are thought to be methane (CH4) sinks due to oxidation by methanotrophs in aerobic soils. However, CH4 budget for upland forests are not well quantified at the ecosystem scale, when possible CH4 sources, such as small wet areas, exists in the ecosystem. Here, we quantified CH4 fluxes in a cool-temperate larch plantation based on four-year continuous measurements using the hyperbolic relaxed eddy accumulation (HREA) method and dynamic closed chambers with a laser-based analyzer. After filling data gaps for half-hourly data using machine-learning-based regressions, we found that the forest acted as a net CH4 source at the canopy scale: 30 ± 11 mg CH4 m−2 yr−1 in 2014, 56 ± 8 mg CH4 m−2 yr−1 in 2015, 154 ± 5 mg CH4 m−2 yr−1 in 2016, and 132 ± 6 mg CH4 m−2 yr−1 in 2017. Hotspot emissions from the edge of the pond could strongly contribute to the canopy-scale emissions. The magnitude of the hotspot emissions was 10–100 times greater than the order of the canopy-scale and chamber-based CH4 fluxes at the dry soils. The high temperatures with wet conditions stimulated the hotspot emissions, and thus induced canopy-scale CH4 emissions in the summer. Understanding and modeling the dynamics of hotspot emissions are important for quantifying CH4 budgets of upland forests. Micrometeorological measurements at various forests are required for revisiting CH4 budget of upland forests.