Abstract
Abstract. Methanol exchanges over a mixed temperate forest in the Belgian Ardennes were measured for more than one vegetation season using disjunct eddy-covariance by a mass scanning technique and Proton Transfer Reaction Mass Spectrometry (PTR-MS). Half-hourly methanol fluxes were measured in the range of −0.6 μg m−2 s−1 to 0.6 μg m−2 s−1, and net daily methanol fluxes were generally negative in summer and autumn and positive in spring. On average, the negative fluxes dominated (i.e. the site behaved as a net sink), in contrast to what had been found in previous studies. An original model describing the adsorption/desorption of methanol in water films present in the forest ecosystem and the methanol degradation process was developed. Its calibration, based on field measurements, predicted a mean methanol degradation rate of −0.0074 μg m−2 s−1 and a half lifetime for methanol in water films of 57.4 h. Biogenic emissions dominated the exchange only in spring, with a standard emission factor of 0.76 μg m−2 s−1. The great ability of the model to reproduce the long-term evolution, as well as the diurnal variation of the fluxes, suggests that the adsorption/desorption and degradation processes play an important role in the global methanol budget. This result underlines the need to conduct long-term measurements in order to accurately capture these processes and to better estimate methanol fluxes at the ecosystem scale.
Highlights
Methanol is the second most abundant organic gas in the atmosphere after methane (Jacob et al, 2005; Singh et al, 2001)
Half-hourly methanol fluxes were measured in the range of −0.6 μg m−2 s−1 to 0.6 μg m−2 s−1, and net daily methanol fluxes were generally negative in summer and autumn and positive in spring
We present long-term ecosystem-scale measurements of methanol fluxes exchanged between a heterogeneous temperate forest and the atmosphere, obtained using the disjunct eddy-covariance by mass scanning
Summary
Methanol is the second most abundant organic gas in the atmosphere after methane (Jacob et al, 2005; Singh et al, 2001). Several modelling studies (Galbally and Kirstine, 2002; Heikes et al, 2002; Jacob et al, 2005; Singh et al, 2000; Stavrakou et al, 2011; Tie et al, 2003) have focused on the global methanol budget These studies show that the principal methanol source in the atmosphere is vegetation (60–80 %) and that the major sinks are the reaction with OH in gas-phase (40–70 %) and dry deposition on land (20–30 %). These modelling efforts, remain characterized by huge uncertainties.
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