COMPARISON OF VARIOUS APPROACHES TO DETERMINING CO2 FLUXES FROM THE SOIL BY 222Rn CALIBRATED METHOD

Abstract

Various approaches of determining CO2 fluxes from the soil based on 222Rn calibrated method were tested. It was shown that the exponential fits of CO2 and 222Rn depth profiles led to uncertainties up to 50% if the depth profiles of CO2 and 222Rn concentration were not measured at sufficient depths. However, CO2 fluxes determined from linear fits of CO2 and 222Rn concentrations in the surface layer of the soil are lower than the fluxes determined from exponential fits, and have lower uncertainties. The comparison of CO2 fluxes derived from 222Rn calibrated methods with directly measured CO2 fluxes showed that the latter are usually on the order of tens of percent higher than the former. CO2 flux from sandy-clay and uncultivated soil was estimated to be on the level of 3.0 mmol m-2 h-1 in the spring and around 7.0 mmol m-2 h-1 in the summer.